SONarchitect Building Acoustic Software

SONarchitect

SONarchitect is the ultimate software for calculation of acoustic insulation according to ISO 12354 parts 1,2,3,4 and 6 in entire buildings.

Airborne and impact noise

With SONarchitect ISO you can compute all the sound insulation values in one-third octave bands in the entire building according to EN 12354:1,2,3,4,6 (ISO 15712:1,2,3,4,6). Results are detailed for every enclosure, separator, flank, and transmission path, and can be interactively explored..

 

Outdoor noise map

SONarchitect ISO computes the noise emission maps from any noisy room in your building, according to EN 12354-4 Annex E

Specify a custom indoor noise spectrum and get the L2n in the adjacent rooms and from the façade.

 

Auralization 3D

Get a subjective experience of the acoustic performance of your building with the auralisation engine, directly accessed from the result tree. Play one of the built-in tracks or your own recordings in any room of your choice and hear how they would sound in the adjacent rooms compared to the emitter room. You only need a good pair of headphones. Take a walk around the 3D environment and feel the differences thanks to the binaural audio processing.

 

SONarchitect ISO exports to Odeon

You can export the 3D model of SONarchitect ISO to the room acoustics software Odeon.

Study the noise insulation of an entire building with SONarchitect ISO, then you can export the 3D model to Odeon and easily design the acoustic environment inside of every room.

Export to odeon

 

Report generator

Print the results you want and the way you want. SONarchitect provides a flexible report generator. Add your enterprise logo, select a cover image with the 3D model of your building, get a bill of quantities for your budget estimations, include a compliance statement, show the quality classification of your building, detail every computation result including components and transmission paths. Or none of them. You can select individual rooms or let SONarchitect select only the worst cases: Yes, indeed, you have computed the acoustic insulation in the entire building, therefore you know they really are the worst!

 

Insul exports to SONarchitect

The software for sound insulation prediction, Insul, has added a new feature. You can export the results of the material insulation to an XML file that can be imported with SONarchitect.

You can enlarge the catalog of SONarchitect using Insul now.

Insul exports

 

Materials in the catalog

SONarchitect database has more than 300 generic constructive solutions, more than 900 commercial solutions, the Simmons Nordic Database and continues to expand!

SONarchitect catalog is synchronized with Acousticbase, the web based catalog for acoustic engineers.

Acousticbase

 

 

One-third octave band values

You can get a detailed record of the one-third octave band of any result. The records includes all the information you need to evaluate the acoustic performance of your building projects, as graphs, results, and information for every pair of enclosures, separator, flank and transmission path.

 

Acoustic quality

Interactive detailed performance histograms are provided for every type of room pairing in the building, allowing fast access to and inspection of the sets of average, less than average, better than average, worst and best cases in the building, or the set of rooms in the building with a given level of insulation. You also get feedback on the compliance level of the rooms with respect to configurable sets of limits for the different encounter types, allowing you to check your designs against any Building Code based on the EN 12354.

Acoustical quality classification of the entire building straightforwardly follows.

How It works?

Easy – Fast – Visual

Can you solve all the acoustic insulation levels in a building? Can you tell whether the acoustic insulation levels are OK in every room?  Could you optimize the acoustic insulation? How long would it take?

Assessing large buildings is not an acoustic problem anymore – we have created the tool allowing you to concentrate on pure acoustic performance.

The working philosophy is simple: SONarchitect has 6 working modes. Complete these six simple stages and get your results.

 

Specify the geometry

Just sketch the plan of every different floor in the building, optionally using a template from a DXF file.

You do not have to tell SONarchitect which are rooms and how, it will automatically detect every room as you draw. Every line becomes a wall, every cross a junction, and every closed shape a new room.

Aid tools allow you to draw normals, specific angles and lengths, ortho lines, and the sticky cursor will help you with clean shapes and correct junctions, also between different floors.

 

3D model

A 3D model of your building is created, where you can verify the geometry of your building, and also virtualize some of the slabs to get complex volumic geometries.

The 3D model can be inspected at any moment during the drawing of the floor plans to asses the progress of the project. Floors having the same plan and building solutions are specified just by a repetition number that creates repeated floors in the 3D model.

 

Assign materials

At any time you can assign building solutions from the customizable database to any element in any floor. The building solutions can be changed at any time, before or after the computation of the acoustic insulation.

 

Room specs

You can identify at any time the enclosures of any floor, and tell SONarchitect the use of each room in the building. This determines the aplicable legislation limits to verify the building compliance. Room identification and use can be changed at any time, before or after the computation, without any additional hassle.

 

Computation

Just press a button… and do not think you will have time for a cup of coffee!

In a couple of seconds you will get the sound insulation values in the entire building, which you will be able to explore room per room, with hints as to any potential troublesome location.

If you have compliance problems, you can go back to the drawing stage, or, more likely, to the material selection, and change whatever may be required. Getting the new results is every time just a matter of a couple of seconds.

Once you are satisfied with the acoustic performance of your building, just press a button, switch on the printer, and have ready your pen to sign the report.

Method

SONarchitect ISO calculates:

  • Airborne noise insulation values according to ISO 12354-1:2017.
  • Impact noise levels according to ISO 12354-2:2017.
  • Façade acoustic insulation values according to ISO 12354-3:2017.
  • Noise emission levels from noisy enclosures according to ISO 12354-4:2017.
  • Reverberation times in rooms according to EN 12354-6.

Also performs the Metzen approximation.

For analythic calculation of sound reduction index (and impact noise level) SONarchitect includes SONmultilayer, with the matrix transfer function method, and SONequation with the methods referenced in:

  • M.J. Crocker and A.J. Price, “Sound Transmission Using Statistical Energy Analysis”, Journal of Sound & Vibration, 1969 9(3) 469-486.
  • ISO 12354-1:2017, Building acoustics. Estimation of acoustic performance in buildings from the performance of elements. Airborne sound insulation between rooms, Appendix B.
  • S. Ljunggren, “Airborne sound insulation of thick walls”, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 89(5) 1991.
  • A. Brekke, “Calculation method for the transmission loss of single, double and triple partitions”, Applied Acoustics 14 (1981) 225-240.
  • A. London, “Transmission of reverberant Sound through Double Walls”, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 22(2) 1950.