Author: Chow, Kin Tung
Title: A study of effect of noise on human comfort in buildings
Advisors: Mak, C. M. (BSE)
Degree: M.Eng.
Year: 2015
Subject: Noise.
Human comfort.
Buildings.
Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations
Department: Department of Building Services Engineering
Pages: viii , 40 pages : color illustrations
Language: English
Abstract: This dissertation is to study the effect of noise on human comfort in buildings. A questionnaire survey was conducted to residents in a private housing unit in Hong Kong to collect their feelings on acoustic comfort in their housing environment. The questionnaires returned were analyzed by using statistical method including Chi-square test, Spearman rank coefficient, Kruskal-Wallis test, etc. The result from this report showed the resident's reflections on their demands on acoustic environment that may give suggestions on the improvement on housing units in the future development.There are several factors promoting acoustic comfort. It is observed that age and gender do not have significant contribution to the participants' satisfaction with acoustic comfort. However, in physical environment part, floor level has significant impact on the satisfaction with acoustic comfort while other items including area of living room and windows are insignificant. For the environmental factors, human noise affects the satisfaction with acoustic comfort of residents in Bauhinia Garden the most when compared to mechanical noise, construction noise and traffic noise. In the aspect of human behavior factors, no obvious conclusion can be drawn. In the time factor, it is suggested that acoustic comfort is time dependent which the time period influence people's satisfaction with acoustic comfort.After the investigation of the project, it was found that the questionnaire survey should be repeated in order to obtain a better result because the result was unobvious and unreliable due to not enough valid samples. Therefore, for a more trustworthy result, the questionnaire survey should be repeated with larger scale so that more valid questionnaires can be collected. Another problem was that the answer of the question may not truly reveal the participants thinking because 42 questions in the questionnaire, which the survey was combined by three parts cooperated by three research students, was too long. Also, on-site noise measurement can be conducted at the residents' living room or balcony after asking for the permission of the management office and the residents of the building. The result from the questionnaire survey will be more trustworthy when combined with noise measurement record.
Rights: All rights reserved
Access: restricted access

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