Abstract
At the conclusion of a noise annoyance survey in air-conditioned offices
a new parameter was proposed. The aim was to define a noise index
well correlated with subjective ratings of noise annoyance and able
to account for the imbalance of the noise spectrum. As the RC Mark
II procedure for rating the noise of HVAC systems in buildings introduced
the “quality assessment index” (QAI), which provides a measure of
the spectral imbalance of a noise, the combination of this parameter
with the RC criterion number (which only measures noise level) was
proposed. In a previous paper, the combination factor that maximised
the correlation was determined and a validation procedure was used
to test the repeatability of the results. In this paper, a new procedure
to calculate the mean subjective ratings has been introduced and
more demanding procedures to test the repeatability of the results
have been used. Finally, it was found that a combination factor varying
in a range from 0.24 to 0.31 provided the highest correlation between
the new parameter and the subjective sensation of annoyance.
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