The development of timber construction calls for a higher degree of prefabrication, whilst maintaining reduced thicknesses of internal partitions and without prejudice to the ease of installation. In multi-unit buildings, acoustic comfort has been gaining more attention over the past years, identifying the need to develop new construction solutions. The R&D project “Timber frame - sound insulation improvement” aimed at improving the sound insulation of lightweight timber constructions by means of combining soundproofing and resilient layers. The project encompassed the study and the testing of a wide variety of construction solutions in which those products could be used. Experimental measurements were carried out in the Building Envelope Laboratories of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. A timber frame partition was used as a reference structure; different linings were then installed, including configurations with gypsum board panels directly fixed to the OSB, installation layers made with timber studs and decoupled counter walls. The chosen configurations were deemed representative of the most commonly used construction solutions and the different performance levels that are required by the customers. Particular attention was dedicated to the characterization of sound insulation at low frequencies, which are of upmost relevance in the evaluation of acoustic comfort and that suffer from the low density of lightweight timber structures. Measurements in the low frequency range were conducted following the procedures reported in two reference standards, namely the EN 16283-1 and the ISO 10140-2 standards and the results were compared with the aim of getting to a better understanding of the sound insulation phenomena. The results showed that, for most of the tested configurations, it was possible to reach a sound insulation improvement up to 8 dB in the whole frequency range by using the combinations of selected products. In particular, the picture attached in the following section reports the sound insulation improvement in four measurement configurations, calculated as the difference between the sound insulation measured for the construction solution with and without any additional material (in brackets in the following). A) timber frame wall, gypsum boards, (silent wall and resilient layer) B) timber frame wall, gypsum boards (and resilient layer) C) timber frame wall, wood studs, (silent wall) and gypsum board D) timber frame wall, C profiles, (silent wall) and gypsum board
