Predictable flow-acoustic performance of ventilation systems in residential buildings (SilenceVen)

The trend towards energy efficient and energy-neutral building, coupled with the increasing demands in acoustic comfort, lead to new challenges for both manufacturers and installers of ventilation systems. After all, air quality and acoustic performance are becoming increasingly important in the HVAC sector through the introduction of the energy performance regulations (EPB) and the acoustic norm for residential buildings. In addition, such systems must also be very energy efficient. In the Optivent project, a methodology and calculation tool was developed that allows for the predictability of the requested air-performance performance with great certainty. This tool focuses on air performance and therefore can not guarantee the acoustic performance of the system. At present, the acoustic design of ventilation systems is based mainly on existing design methods that do not adequately or even not at all take into account the interaction between air flow and acoustic properties of the system. The purpose of this project is to develop a user-friendly tool that allows ventilation systems to be designed that charge the interaction between flow and acoustics.