The manufacturing and production of concrete construction building materials creates roughly 10% of global carbon emissions. As a result, architectural engineers are trying to find new ways to reduce the amount of concrete used in their buildings. Less concrete, though, can lead to some major ramifications in terms of the acoustics of a built space. In this episode, we talk to Jonathan Michael Broyles (Penn State) about techniques for optimizing the design of concrete slabs used in floors to reduce materials while improving acoustic performance.

Associated paper: Jonathan Michael Broyles, Micah R. Shepherd, and  Nathan C. Brown. "Investigation of optimization techniques on structural-acoustical shaped concrete slabs in buildings." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust 42, 022001 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001354

Read more from Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA).

Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications.

 
Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=1022