A Numerical Investigation of the Trade-Off Between Sound Insulation and Air Ventilation for a Partially Open Door

As urban buildings become increasingly dense, indoor personnel are often exposed to noise disturbances from adjoining rooms which can reduce working efficiency and affect mental health. Closing the door is one of the ways to reduce noise transmission, but it can cause a decrease in indoor air circulation. This paper investigates the sound insulation effect and air ventilation performance of a door in a partially open state by numerical simulation. To acquire the effect of sound insulation, an acoustic–structural solver is employed to calculate the sound transmission losses with different door opening angles in the frequency domain. To evaluate the ventilation performance, the mass flow rates across door opening are calculated by computational fluid dynamics. The simulation results confirm the trade-off relation between the sound insulation effect and the ventilation performance. To calculate the effect of noise and ventilation on work efficiency, a comprehensive evaluation index workplace environmental score (WES) was introduced and calculated by the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. A clear sound insulation effect corresponds to an opening angle (θd) of less than 15° with minimum air ventilation. Good ventilation performance could be obtained when the door opening angle is larger than 45°, while the sound insulation effect is negligible. A good compromise between the sound insulation effect and the air ventilation performance is found to be in the range of θd = 15°~25°, which provides practical recommendations in daily routines.