Noise management through automated window systems

Real estate near major transportation hubs such as airports often cannot be developed for human habitation due to the noise emissions. However, since such locations are often prime building sites close to major cities surrounded by high quality infrastructure, a research project has been initiated to evaluate the availability and the quality of automated windows allowing the construction of apartment buildings on properties with a high noise level (e.g., close to a major airport). However the Swiss Noise Abatement Ordinance (NAO) requires that such apartments are protected against excessive noise and a suitable indoor climate defined by humidity, temperature, air exchange, pollutant concentrations, and nocturnal cooling to protect against excessive summer heat has to be guaranteed. One of the ideas to comply with the ordinance is to use a time-controlled, automatic actuator to open and close sound insulated windows. To evaluate this idea, the University of Applied Sciences (BFH) conducted a market search to find appropriate sound insulated windows that comply with the requirements of the Swiss Noise Abatement Ordinance (NAO) in respect to airborne sound insulation. Additionally, the project searched for window actuators that allow time-controlled, automatic opening and closing of windows. With a selected set of the products found, representative test samples (sound insulated windows with time-controlled, automatic actuators) were tested for their airborne sound insulation capacity and the noise levels of the time-controlled, automatic actuators in the sound test stand of Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology).