Resumen de Suppression of diffracted sound by green walls
Takafumi Shimizu, Toru Matsuda, Yosei Nishibe, Misaki Tempo, Kimie Yoshitani, Yoichi Azumi
Green walls covered with vegetation are used in urban areas to purify the air, improve the appearance of the landscape and reduce heat-island effects. They also improve the noise environment. It has been reported in previous studies that the surfaces of green walls have good sound-absorbing performance. However, the contribution of the greenery to the sound-insulation performance of green walls, which are also used as noise barriers, has not been verified quantitatively. In this study, the enhancement of the sound-absorption performance of a wall due to greening was verified via measurements using actual green walls and the results were compared with those of a steel noise barrier, which has limited sound-absorption performance. Numerical analyses using the boundary element method (BEM) were also conducted. As a result, it was confirmed that the sound-absorbing effect generated by wall greening reduces the diffracted noise, thus contributing to sound-insulation performance enhancement in areas above the noise barrier.
