Caracterização acústica de dois sistemas modulares de telhados verdes brasileiros

Abstract

This study aimed to experimentally evaluate the properties as sound absorbers of two modular green roof systems commonly used in Brazil: the Alveolar simple and the modular Hexa. This study emerged from the unification of two aggravating problems, being the environment degradation and the environmental noise, given the records that vegetated roofs generally have several environmental benefits, including acoustic. The two systems were evaluated with the same substratum, but with different features and using distinct plants and assembly modes, that is, grass on the Alveolar system and plants of the sedum genus on the Hexa modular system. Measuring experiments of sound absortion have been made for each of the systems, consisting of two measurings with different substratum thickness and one measuring of the systems with sedum plants. The chosen experimental procedure was the method of reverberation chamber in a diffuse sound field. It was found that substrata of all the combinations of investigated samples have interesting absorption properties, due their porosity. The maximum sound absorption coefficient α of the Alveolar system with 2.5cm thick substratum was 1.0 at 1kHz, and the lower frequency coefficient are close to 0.20. The Alveolar system with 4 cm of substratum and the Hexa modular system with sedum plants were those which had, in general, higher values for α in all frequency bands, as well as showing the highest NRC values, in other words: values of 0.80 and 0.81 respectively. The maximum α in the Alveolar system with a layer of 4 cm thick substratum reached the value of 0.89 at frequencies of 1 kHz, 2 kHz and 2.5 kHz, and at the low frequencies from 100 Hz to 200 Hz the sample reached α values between 0.25 and 0.32; whereas the Hexa modular system with a 6cm substratum plus sedum the α values were 0.94 at a frequency of 800Hz, and between 0.16 and 0.26 at low frequencies. The 4cm thick Alveolar system with grass was the system which had higher α values in the frequencies of 100Hz and 200Hz, between 0.31 and 0.38, therefore being most efficient for traffic noise absorption. In general, the absorption coefficients of all samples doubled the value at the range of 250Hz, in comparison to the 200Hz frequency. The obtained results show a high absorption coefficient for such systems, which indicates that using green roofs can be na effective alternative of urban noise control.