The challenges
Home to 100 different retailers, Tauranga’ s premier shopping mall ‘BayFair’ opened recently in Mt Maunganui on the South East coast of New Zealand. Offering supermarkets and department stores with longer operation hours and over 1600 car spaces, the centre wanted to be sure to meet standards and address traffic noise concerns near the loading docks when the redevelopment is finished.
Residents on the Farm Street side would require a solution covering a large frequency range to address the problem of engine noise from local traffic noise. Hard, reflective surfaces will also amplify street noise without proper acoustic treatment. Constantly perceptible noise or exposure to unacceptable noise levels would impact pedestrians, neighbours and shops or other small commercial premises nearby.
The solutions
Pyrotek worked with Woodhams Meikle Zhan Architects in specifying Reapor for the Countdown exterior wall near the driveway.
Being a potential high wind zone, mechanical fixing (powder coated "J" channel) was chosen as the preferred method and it was installed by Foster Construction. Providing absorption in the reflective environment which typically experiences high wind conditions meant proper consideration to affix the material securely to the area.
The panels are constructed from small aerated granules and are suitable for use outdoors and in loading docks. Wet panels will drain freely and dry in the sun. The granules are fused together through a patented high temperature sintering process to form a hard, lightweight, fibre-free, non-combustible stone-look panel to effectively absorb a broad frequency range of noise produced by local traffic.
Designed with light and delicate architectural components, the building included Reapor as part of the exterior for acoustic purposes and for it’s modern, lightly textured concrete surface look.
The results
The Reapor wall was constructed next to the driveway, to reduce and control reverberation from the traffic noise to the adjacent property. Reapor is a porous, high performance material with good success rates absorbing noise from driveways, commercial thoroughfares, rail and infrastructure tunnels.
The panels have a high NRC (noise reduction coefficient) of 0.95
Upon writing, stage 2 is to be launched later in 2019.
Reapor is highly effective for commercial and industrial noise issues such as infrastructure, loading docks, HVAC as well as architectural applications.
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