Comments on: Bales As Soundproofing

By: Andrew Morrison

Andrew Morrison — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:50:33 +0000

Hi Darold. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I believe that sound walls were built along the highways of Nevada in some cases. I don’t know for sure, but this was a rumor some years ago. Please let me know what you find or if you want help convincing the engineers.

Best of luck to you.

By: Darold Heikens

Darold Heikens — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:24:15 +0000

Andrew, do you know if any strawbale soundwalls have been built within the transportation environment. I work as a Project Manager for the California Dept. of Transportation in Sacramento and would like to use strawbale for soundwalls but have problems convincing the engineers, also because they require them to be overbuilt so much the straw walls don’t have much if any savings given the risk in their mind. Examples would help me persuade.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:36:43 +0000

Thanks for the correction and input Mark. I appreciate the feedback and references.

By: Mark Gibbs

Mark Gibbs — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:24:00 +0000

Your explanation of sound insulation is incorrect … when it comes to sound, what matters is how much the energy of a sound wave is attenuated when passing through a material.

From NDT (yes, this site concerns ultrasonics but the basics apply to everyday frequencies):
“When sound travels through a medium, its intensity diminishes with distance. In idealized materials, sound pressure (signal amplitude) is only reduced by the spreading of the wave. Natural materials, however, all produce an effect which further weakens the sound. This further weakening results from scattering and absorption. Scattering is the reflection of the sound in directions other than its original direction of propagation. Absorption is the conversion of the sound energy to other forms of energy. The combined effect of scattering and absorption is called attenuation.”