EdOnline

DESCRIPTION: The acoustical comfort level in the workplace is a key measure of the quality of the indoor environment for building occupants. This course explores key concepts and characteristics of sound, as well as speech intelligibility and privacy and their associated acoustical remedies. Also presented is the use of sound absorbers and diffusers as acoustical solutions to noise problems. OBJECTIVES: At the end of this program, participants will be able to: 1) state what sound is and what it requires, and discuss the characteristics of sound (frequency, period and wavelength, amplitude, and resonance) that determine what we hear, 2) summarize how prolonged exposure to noise can affect the physiological and psychological well-being of building occupants, negatively impacting mood, productivity, and cognitive function, 3) discuss the importance of speech intelligibility and speech privacy in the workplace and present remedies (absorption, blocking, cover) to better facilitate acoustical privacy or improve speech projection, and 4) specify sound absorbers to reduce noise and diffusers to better distribute sound energy throughout a space, thereby creating a comfortable acoustic environment for building occupants.