ORIGINAL PAPER
Acoustic conditions in open plan office – Application of technical measures in a typical room
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Centralny Instytut Ochrony Pracy – Państwowy Instytut Badawczy / Central Institute for Labour Protection – National Research Institute, Warszawa, Poland (Zakład Zagrożeń Wibroakustycznych / Department of Vibroacoustic Hazards)
Online publication date: 2018-03-08
Corresponding author
Witold Mikulski
Centralny Instytut Ochrony Pracy –
Państwowy Instytut Badawczy, Zakład Zagrożeń Wibroakustycznych, ul. Czerniakowska 16, 00-701 Warszawa
Med Pr Work Health Saf. 2018;69(2):153-65
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ABSTRACT
Background: Noise in open plan offices should not exceed acceptable levels for the hearing protection. Its major negative effects
on employees are nuisance and impediment in execution of work. Specific technical solutions should be introduced to provide
proper acoustic conditions for work performance. Material and Methods: Acoustic evaluation of a typical open plan office was
presented in the article published in “Medycyna Pracy” 5/2016. None of the rooms meets all the criteria, therefore, in this article
one of the rooms was chosen to apply different technical solutions to check the possibility of reaching proper acoustic conditions.
Acoustic effectiveness of those solutions was verified by means of digital simulation. The model was checked by comparing the
results of measurements and calculations before using simulation. Results: The analyzis revealed that open plan offices supplemented
with signals for masking speech signals can meet all the required criteria. It is relatively easy to reach proper reverberation
time (i.e., sound absorption). It is more difficult to reach proper values of evaluation parameters determined from A-weighted
sound pressure level (SPLA) of speech. The most difficult is to provide proper values of evaluation parameters determined from
speech transmission index (STI). Finally, it is necessary (besides acoustic treatment) to use devices for speech masking. The study
proved that it is technically possible to reach proper acoustic condition. Conclusions: Main causes of employees complaints in
open plan office are inadequate acoustic work conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to apply specific technical solutions – not only
sound absorbing suspended ceiling and high acoustic barriers, but also devices for speech masking. Med Pr 2018;69(2):153–165