DG-1110-3-119
Design Guide: Band Training Facilities
March 1983
Introduction
Attenuation: reduction; in this case, of sound level,
Installation Master Plan: an integrated series of documents
which presents in graphic, narrative, and tabular form
especially by walls and other barriers between two rooms.
the present composition of the installation and the plan for
Auditory Health Hazard: sound of such loudness or fre
its orderly and comprehensive development to perform
quency as to cause injury to the ears and impair hearing,
its various missions in the most efficient and economical
permanently or temporarily.
manner over a 20-year period.
Batt Insulation, acoustical: fiberglass or other fibers, bonded
Isolation: keeping noise either in or out of a room by means
loosely - specifically designed to absorb sound (as opposed
of constructions that reduce the amount of sound passing
to thermal insulation).
through; see also "Attenuation".
CFM: cubic feet per minute; a measure of the movement
Loudness: intensity of sound, which may be graded from
of a liquid or a gas (usually used to describe conditioned
soft to loud; loudness depends primarily on the sound power
air), in quantities of one cubic foot of volume passing a
of the stimulus (source), but also on the frequency and
given point in one minute.
wave form of the stimulus, as modified by the room surfaces:
Cast-in Place Concrete: concrete poured into forms in
sound can be absorbed that would otherwise be reflected
its final location; forms are subsequently removed; see
back into the room to add to the loudness; measured in
Precast Concrete.
decibels.
Clerestory Windows: windows inserted in the section of
Live Room: a room with an unusually small amount of
wall between an upper and lower roof.
sound absorption, and thus much reverberation; a "dead"
room has a large amount of absorption, so sounds quickly
Decibel: a unit for measuring the relative loudness of sound,
die out.
equal approximately to the smallest degree of difference
of loudness ordinarily detectable by the human ear
Life Cycle Costing: estimating building costs for the entire
(logarithmically related to the actual sound energy).
expected useful life of the building, including operating
and repair costs, in addition to the usual considerations for
Diffusion: distribution of sound throughout the room under
initial construction cost.
consideration; uniform distribution rather than focusing
of sound in one place is the goal, and this is accomplished
MCA Program: Military Construction, Army; including the
through varying the positions and types of surfaces, and
planning, programming, designing, budgeting, construction,
the distribution of absorption within the room.
and disposal of major and minor construction of Army
facilities, acquisition of real estate, and other supporting
Earth Berm: a mound of earth, usually man-made.
activities.
Environmental Systems: equipment and assemblies to
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Noise Criteria (NC): a grading scale of levels of noise in
condition air in a building for human comfort or other tech-
decibels, based on tests of speech interference and annoy-
nical requirements; usually includes heating, cooling,
ance considerations; a room is assigned an NC rating,
ventilating, dehumidifying, and filtering impurities.
stating acceptable background noise, based on how criti-
cal interference and annoyance by outside sounds will
Flanking Path: a way for sound to circumvent a barrier; for
be; for example, a room that requires almost total silence
example, a metal tube that goes around the end of a sound-
should allow only a very small amount of interfering noise,
isolating wall between two rooms, thus serving as a con-
and thus would have a low Noise Criterion.
duit for sound to bypass the barrier.
Noise: unwanted sound.
Flutter echo: a ringing noise caused by a pattern of repeti
tive sound reflections along the same path, such as
Noise Control: the manipulation of mechanical system noises
between two parallel hard surfaces.
that result from the conditioning of the space, so they
are not objectionable, or so they provide an even back-
Frequency: the number of oscillations of sound waves
ground sound level.
per unit of time; the higher the frequency, the higher the
pitch of the sound; a sound isolating or sound absorbing
Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC): a rating scale for the
material has different effectiveness at different frequencies.
effectiveness of sound absorbers, measured at the four mid-
dle frequencies; high numbers indicate high absorptivity.
Gasket: a flexible strip of material which is compressed
The coefficient may be misleading as it does not consider
to make a tight seal; for example, a material pressed by a
the low frequencies generated by many band instruments.
door against the door frame.
Plenum: a space above or below a room, into which pres-
Gypsum Wallboard (GWB) gypsum plaster manufactured
surized conditioned air is directed, to then pass to the
into stiff, paper-covered boards, which are attached to the
rooms above or below through registers.
building structure to make walls; joints between the boards
are sealed and smoothed to form a continuous surface; also
Precast Concrete Plank: factory-made concrete planks,
called sheetrock.
delivered to a building site and set by crane on a frame-
work to form a floor or roof; to reduce-weight, hollow spaces
Glazing: glass, as installed in a window.
usually run the length of the plank.
Hertz (Hz): the number of cycles of oscillation of sound
Project Development Brochure (PDB): documents
waves per second; a measure of frequency.
prepared, in two phases, as part of the project develop-
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