Measurements, studies and works in room acoustics are a significant part of ITS' activity.
Room acoustics is a field of building engineering activity that relates in particular to the comfort of speaking and listening for spaces in which they must be favored, but also, in general, to the habitability of premises, since they are likely to be durably occupied.
Thus, room acoustics is a matter for specialists, intended to allow obtaining, for different buildings whose construction, when it is successful, is the reputation of their builders, specific performance, in line with very strong technical requirements such as those required for operas, theaters, cinemas, concert halls.
For such constructions, many performance indicators are used e.g. clarity at 50 or 80 ms (C50, C80), early decay time EDT (Early Decay Time), speech transmission index STI, central time TS, definition D50, sound force G, lateral efficiency (LF and LFC).
ITS has the means for calculating these room acoustics performance indicators, which must be the subject of in-depth studies in the perspective of successful projects (whether it comes to the construction of a building or to renovation works).
In addition, room acoustics aim to offer comfort conditions (according to the ambition of the parties involved in the project, often modulated according to the existence or the absence of regulatory obligation: acceptable, or sometimes: the best possible), for living places as varied as station or airport halls, meeting rooms, premises of educational institutions (e.g. rooms for teaching or practical activities, administration, library, information and documentation center, music room, meeting room, teacher's room, medical room and infirmary, multipurpose room, dining room), sports halls (e.g. gymnastics, athletics, volleyball , handball, basketball, tennis, fencing, table tennis), health establishments (e.g. restaurants, staff rest rooms, public reception areas, accommodation or treatment rooms, examination rooms or consultation, medical or care offices, premises and circulation accessible for public), or institutions for children under 6 years (atrium, playrooms - and activity rooms – for the different sections, sleeping rooms, offices, medical premises , rooms reserved for staff, halls and stairwells likely to be used regularly by children).
For such premises, the reverberation time (duration) is often a fundamental indicator of their acoustic quality, fairly easy to be verified [1] .
ITS has the means for the prediction of this indicator for room acoustics performance as well as means for its on-site measurement (e.g. before works to carry out a diagnosis, or after works, to check the effectiveness of arrangements made in terms of soundproofing) .
It is also the case for other living places that are the restaurants, the bars, the places with diffusion of amplified music, as well as the offices and associated spaces (individual or collective offices, open spaces, empty levels, meeting rooms / training rooms, relaxation areas, aisles).
In the case of work premises, the noise level decay per doubling of distance from a source is the current performance indicator: ITS also has the means for simulating this indicator of room acoustics performance as well as the means for its measurement on site.
In terms of room acoustics, ITS's service offer includes on-site measurements, comparison of measured results with reference values (e.g. regulatory or normative), and proposals for improvements (description of recommended actions), sizing and marketing of solutions (soundproofing equipment), with or without installation.
On-site metrology (involving noise generators and sound level meters, duly calibrated and verified) and studies are carried out by a qualified and experienced human resource, ITS's quality management system for such services being regularly assessed in accordance with the requirements of the standard ISO 9001.
Depending on the context, simulations of the acoustic performance of rooms can be carried out using software allowing sound rays tracing (the creation of a model taking into account the detailed geometry of the room, the nature and the positioning each surface element liable to absorb, reflect or diffract sounds is a long process, as is the calculation time associated with such an approach), or else (when the reverberation time or the spatial sound decay by doubling the distance to a noise source are the main parameters of interest) with a tool allowing faster (and therefore: at a more affordable cost) obtaining of sufficiently precise calculation results, which is often required in the framework of ITS design office missions.
The works marketed by ITS consist in the implementation, by teams having the love of a job well done, of materials (also selected for their behavior with respect to the risks of fire, their methods of installation, their decorative aspect, their durability) with a performance in terms of sound absorption coefficient (depending on the frequency) as resulting from a detailed preceding study, in quantity and at specified locations to obtain the expected, verifiable results according to a well-defined measurement protocol.
All these activities are well in line with the slogan of ITS: "choice soundscapes, everywhere".
[1] NF EN ISO 3382-2 Acoustics Measurement of acoustic parameters in rooms Part 2: Reverberation time in ordinary rooms