Static structures (e.g. – buildings) – With exposed configuration having acoustical function
Patent
1993-01-04
1994-11-01
Ridgill, Jr., James L.
Static structures (e.g., buildings)
With exposed configuration having acoustical function
E04B 182
Patent
active
053598199
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a sound- and vibration-damping device using unitary structures consisting of tires, parts of tires or of elements equivalent in terms of the shape and absorbant nature of the material.
It applies more particularly to the production of noise-protection walls reusing worn-out tires.
Currently, worn-out and stored tires are destroyed by active combustion (fire) or by slow combustion (acid) entailing an intense atmospheric or land pollution requiring, in some cases, the evacuation of populations over a greater or lesser radius from the site of destruction. Dumping worn-out tires in rubbish dumps is in the process of being banned.
Attempts to use worn-out tires, for the construction of noise-protection walls, essentially consist in stacking them one on top of another or in juxtaposing them beside one another in order therefrom to make columns placed horizontally or vertically and joined loosely to one another (see for example DE-U-77 34,600).
Current worn-out tire-based noise-protection wall designs have two major drawbacks.
On the one hand, the sound-damping effect is rather limited insofar as these walls do not enable acoustic imperviousness to be achieved, especially due to the fact that they allow free spaces constituting acoustic paths to remain between the tires.
On the other hand, in the event of accidental or willful combustion triggered for example by an accident at a location of the tire wall, this combustion propagates uncontrollably to the entire wall, representing a considerable danger for the environment and the population.
Furthermore, such walls have an unesthetic appearance which acts as a deterrent against the installation thereof.
The present invention aims to provide a sound- and vibration-damping device of the aforementioned type, alleviating the abovementioned drawbacks, whilst improving the acoustic damping properties.
According to its main characteristic, the present invention relates to a sound- and vibration-damping device using unitary structures consisting of tires, parts of tires or of elements equivalent in terms of the shape and the absorbant nature of the material, characterized in that said unitary structures are disposed in at least one incombustible casing so as to delimit elementary anechoic chambers, said casing including a so-called "front" wall element provided with openings which are intended to face a noise source,
By means of such a device, it becomes achievable first of all to eliminate all risks of propagation of a combustion to the entire noise-protection wall. This is because, since such a wall according to the invention consists, as will be seen hereinbelow, of a succession of casings in a vertical and/or horizontal disposition, a start of combustion of the unitary structures in one casing will be contained in this casing without the possibility of propagating to the adjacent casings.
In addition, since the structures are not visible from the outside, the esthetic appearance is determined by the casing wall elements which may be decorated or fitted-out at will as a function of esthetic requirements.
Furthermore, the fact of providing a disposition of the unitary structures so as to constitute elementary anechoic chambers enables an improved acoustic imperviousness to be achieved with respect to existing devices. This acoustic imperviousness is further increased by the interaction of the unitary structures with the wall elements of the casing.
This use of casings makes it especially possible advantageously to allow the unitary structures to be held tightly against one another or one on top of another, thus eliminating, with the wall elements of the casing, the acoustic paths which, in conventional embodiments, pass through the device.
The elementary anechoic chambers, constituted by the unitary structures, cause an acoustic-wave trapping effect arising from the shape of said structures.
In the rest of the description and in the claims, in order not to burden the text unnecessarily, the expressions "tires" and "half-tires" will design
REFERENCES:
patent: 3951384 (1976-04-01), Hildreth
patent: 4785577 (1988-11-01), Lederbauer
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