EVALUATION ON ACOUSTICAL PERFORMANCE OF CLASSROOM SPATIAL AND LAYOUT ARRANGEMENT BY USING COMPUTER SIMULATION

Abstract

A classroom should be created to accomplish good acoustical conditions in order to support an effective learning process. Study shows that one of the ultimate significant solutions around acoustic issues in classroom is by changing the seating arrangement to establish the best and functional proximity for students and improve their performance. The objective of this research is to identify various seating arrangements of classroom, namely traditional arrangement – rows and columns, modular arrangement, horseshoe arrangement and stadium arrangement and evaluate their acoustical performance in the classroom by using computer simulation, ODEON Room Acoustic Software. The base model of the classroom is derived according to study done in 2018, School A which fulfills least of the acoustical criteria with poor speech transmission index. The results were analyzed and compared based on two basic evaluation criteria: i) Reverberation Time (RT), ii) Speech Transmission Index (STI). From the results, it was found that modular arrangement has the best reverberation time among all the seating arrangements while horseshoe arrangement achieved the best speech intelligibility among all. It has also been found that reverberation time of a classroom can be decreased by decreasing the room volume and adding higher absorption material to the classroom.