Research of the effects of residential balconies as sound barriers against environmental noise

Noise pollution is one of the biggest environmental problems known to have serious effects on the quality of life, well-being, and health of the society. Demographic expansion has brought along rapidly developing cities and unplanned urbanization. Residential buildings, which are surrounded between the development of transportation networks in these new built environments and heavy traffic arteries, urban rail transportation systems, and constant construction noise, have been the most affected by noise pollution. In this thesis, the measures developed to manage and mitigate the known effects of environmental noise and the contribution of building envelope designs in improving the acoustic quality of the built environment were examined. Among the building envelope designs, the architectural and acoustic design criteria recommended by regulations and standards for balcony elements, which are widely used in residential buildings, were defined. Within the scope of the thesis, the noise levels that a sample housing unit is exposed to in the environmental conditions were measured. The appropriate balcony geometry, the properties and positioning of the material used in acoustic design, and how they contribute to increasing the auditory comfort of the residents were investigated via Odeon simulation software. Based on obtained results, critical factors in balcony designs of new buildings and improvement of existing ones were determined.