Keep the Noise Down!

Overview

Objectives/Goals The purpose of my experiment was to determine whether there was a relationship between the density of a material and the intensity of sound it blocked. Methods/Materials To conduct this experiment, I bought tiles of plastic, wood, glass, and stone all of the same thickness, and found their density. I then constructed a soundproof box of wood. I placed a five minute recording of a drill in one end and a sound meter on the other side. I then placed the material in between the two at a fixed distance. By turning on the tape, I was able to measure the amount of sound let through the material and calculate the amount of sound blocked out. I performed a series of four trials for each of the materials. Results The densest material blocked out the most sound, while the least dense materials blocked out the least sound. Conclusions/Discussion Using a form of statistical analysis, I was able to determine that there was a definite correlation between density and the intensity of a sound that a material blocks. This seems to suggest that denser walls are more soundproof than other walls.

Competition history

• CSEF 2002 Applied Mechanics/ Structures & Mechanisms/ Manufacturing · Entry J0202

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Engineering projects
• CSEF Engineering projects
• Every CSEF 2002 project