Compliance with acoustic performance levels and criteria is imperative in educational premises such as nursery schools, elementary schools, colleges, high schools, regional adapted education establishments, universities and higher education establishments, general, technical or professional, public or private. This determines the quality of learning and training for pupils and students, as well as the working atmosphere for teachers and professors.
In France, the Decree of 25 April 2003 on the limitation of noise in schools addresses the following spaces (and imposes a limit for reverberation time):
- nursery lounge, nursery exercise room, nursery playroom: 0.4 s to 0.8 s
- teachning, music, education, hands-on activities premise ; dining room and polyvalent hall with a volume at most equal to 250 m3: 0.4 s to 0.8 s
- medical or social premise, infirmary ; toilets ; administration room ; hall ; meeting room ; library ; documentation and information center: 0.4 s to 0.8 s
- local education, music, education or business practices of a volume greater than 250 m3, except noisy workshop: 0.6 s to 1.2 s
- dining room with a volume greater than 250 m3: 1.2 s as a maximum
- multipurpose room with a volume greater than 250 m3: 0.6 s to 1.2 s
- other local circulations and accessible to students with a volume greater than 250 m3: in the case of a volume lower than 512 m3: 1.2 s as a maximum otherwise 0.15 times the cube root of the volume (this latter: iexpressed in m3)
- gyms: not explicitly mentioned, but announced
In all cases, reverberation time is thus the basic technical requirement except for horizontal passages and halls with a volume of less than 250 m3 and for courtyards: an equivalent absorption area for the absorbent coverings to be placed (in proportion to the floor area of the premises in question) is then imposed:
- proportion of 50 %
ITS masters all aspects of the question of acoustic performance levels and criteria for educational institutions:
- on-site measurement of the reverberation time, with a noise generator and a metrological chain for the recording and analysis of the temporal sound decay
- study based on drawings for the evaluation of equivalent absorption surfaces ;choice of products with an appropriate acoustic absorption coefficient (often: 100% in the frequency bands of 1/1 octave of central frequency 500 Hz to 2 kHz) and evaluation of the appropriate quantities for each space taking into account its volume ; predictive calculation of reverberation duration
- marketing of soundproofing products (suspended ceiling tiles and other sound-absorbing elements, acoustic wall coverings, noise-reducing screens for canteens) and works
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