A multi-criterion method to assess the acoustic quality in museums

Abstract

This paper proposes a multi-criteria analysis model to acoustically characterize a specific type of building: museums. Significant acoustic objective parameters are used and logically weighted (after analysis of questionnaires and interviews for subjective responses of visitors) to find a representative unique index of evaluation of a room, the IAQM (Index of Acoustic Quality in Museums) rated on a scale from 0 (worst) to 20 (best). The acoustic parameters used are: Reverberation Time (RT), weighted standardized sound level difference of facades (D2m,nT,w), Rapid Speech Transmission Index (RASTI), LAeq (from HVAC background noise) and L'nT,w (weighted standardized field impact sound pressure level). The multi-criteria mathematical model is presented and numerically tested with two museums.