Parametric sensitivity analysis of factors affecting sound insulation of double glazing using Taguchi method

The paper presents application of Taguchi method in optimizing the sound transmission through double glazing in order to investigate the relative influence of the various parameters affecting the sound insulation characteristics for design of highly insulative facade constructions and windows for traffic noise abatement. The application of Taguchi method for optimizing sound transmission loss has been rarely reported. The present work uses the results analytically predicted using ‘Insul’ software for various double glazing configurations as desired by each experimental run in an L9 orthogonal array. The relative importance of the parameters on single number rating Rw (C, Ctr) was evaluated in terms of percentage contributions using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The analysis reveals that air–gap is a prominent factor in controlling the sound insulation characteristics of double glazing and thus regression equations correlating the single-number ratings with thickness of identical glass and air–gap in a double glazing is described.