A soft-sensing approach for the evaluation of the acoustic comfort due to building envelope protection against external noise

This research presents a methodology for measuring acoustic comfort using a soft-sensing approach to support decision-making for buildings renovation. The soft-sensor provides a measurement system for evaluating indoor acoustic quality of buildings (housing, schools, offices, etc.) in relation to the external noise level. The metric is represented by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which quantitatively express the acoustic comfort. Information regarding the current condition of the building (“As-is” KPI) is provided as a normalised value for the simplified quantification of acoustic performance. The knowledge of the “As-is” KPI allows the design team to compare it with the new KPIs obtained from renovation scenarios (“What – if” KPI). A case study is presented to demonstrate the exploitability of the methodology. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses are performed to establish how the accuracy of the KPI measurement impacts on the decision-making process. The methodology shows promising results in the identification of the best retrofit strategy.