Assessment of single-sided ventilation with acoustic shutters on windows
Despite natural ventilation has shown great potential and noticeable efficiency in terms of indoor air quality and energy demand, it usually causes external noise entrance by the openings. The use of shutters can reduce this drawback but also the ventilation performance. The paper proves the feasibility of the use of shutters from the viewpoints of both noise and single-sided ventilation rate. It first assesses the acoustic performances of an optimized shutter. Then, using tracer gas methods, the air change rate is measured in a test-room holding this shutter on the window. Results show that the use of an optimized shutter can provide about 4 h-1 average ACR which is largely acceptable for ventilating buildings. The measurement results are then compared to correlations of natural ventilation and provided good agreement.