Building and room acoustics

• Working group leader: Assoc. Prof. Ing. Vojtech Chmelík, PhD., vojtech.chmelik@stuba.sk
• Contact person: Assoc. Prof. Ing. Daniel Urbán, PhD., daniel.urban@stuba.sk
• Contact person: Mgr. Daniel Szabo, daniel.szabo@stuba.sk

 Research focus 

The basic areas of research are focused on the topics of building acoustics, room acoustics, acoustic properties of building materials, and subjective assessment of sound.

Building acoustics: Experimental work related to the objective assessment of the quality of building products, research in the field of structural noise propagation, development of acoustic solutions, numerical modeling, development of measurement methods in building acoustics; development and revision of single-number acoustic quantities aimed at assessing the quality of sound insulation; development of methods for measuring and predicting the acoustic properties of membrane structures and prediction of noise induced by rain.

Room acoustics: Research in the field of prediction of acoustic comfort in the interior of buildings, with a focus on the development and revision of evaluation parameters in room acoustics; experimental evaluation and prediction of room acoustic parameters; development and revision of methods for prediction of binaural speech intelligibility in noise and reverberation; research in the field of inclusive design with a focus on individuals with hearing and visual impairments and the impact of acoustic properties on their ability to localize sound and acoustic orientation in space.

Standardized methods

• STN EN ISO 354 Acoustics. Measurement of sound absorption in a reverberant room
• STN EN ISO 10140-1 to 5 Acoustics. Laboratory measurement of sound insulation of building elements.
• STN EN ISO 16283-1 to 3 Acoustics. Field measurement of sound insulation in buildings and of building elements.
• STN EN ISO 3382-1 to 3 Acoustics. Measurement of room acoustic parameters.
• STN EN 29052- Acoustics Determination of dynamic stiffness - Part 1: Materials used under floating floors in dwellings
• STN EN ISO 10534-2 Acoustics - Determination of acoustic properties in impedance tubes - Part 2: Two-microphone technique for normal sound absorption coefficient and normal surface impedance
• ASTM E2611-17 Standard Test Method for Normal Incidence Determination of Porous Material Acoustical Properties Based on the Transfer Matrix Method
• ASTM E1050 – 19 Standard Test Method for Impedance and Absorption of Acoustical Materials Using a Tube, Two Microphones and a Digital Frequency Analysis System

Non-standardized methods

• vibrometric methods
• modal analysis
• sound field analysis
• auralization of space
• listening tests
• statistical analysis

Laboratories of acoustics of buildings I, II

 Selected publications 

• Urban, D., & Neusser, M. (2025). Investigating Objective Approaches for Assessing Impact Sound Insulation in Ceiling Systems Under Heavy/Soft Impact Excitation. Slovak Journal of Civil Engineering, 33(1), 10-18. https://doi.org/10.2478/sjce-2025-0002
• Neusser, M., Urban, D., & Müllner, H. (2025). Acoustic performance and measurement challenges of loose blown-in insulation materials in wall constructions: a focus on straw. Building Acoustics, https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X251331026
• Húdoková, D., Chmelík, V., Rychtáriková, M., & van Wieringen, A. (2025). Development and validation of SLPS: Slovak semantically predictable sentences. International Journal of Audiology, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/14992027.2025.2471001
• Glorieux, C., Chmelík, V., & Rychtáriková, M. (2024). Assessment of adequacy of single number quantities for wall insulation performance based on the Zwicker’s loudness of transmitted indoor noise. Building Acoustics, 31(2), 131-145. https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X241236402