The Acoustics of the Amman Sport Arena The Design and Result

This paper discusses the acoustic design stages of the Amman Sport Hall, which was recently established at Al-Hussein Sport City. This project is a part of a large sport complex to accommodate the 9th Arab Sport Tournament. The Arena has been locally designed and built in a relatively short period of time (within 9 months). It accommodates courts for basketball, handball, wrestling and other similar games. It contains 7500 seats, as well as other sport facilities and services. It is the largest covered hall in Jordan. However, it is designed to be also used as a multi-purpose hall for celebrations and national events The reverberation time is calculated to be between 1.8 and 2.0 seconds at mid frequencies as normally recommended for multipurpose halls. The background noise is reduced to NC35 and the % ALCONS is calculated to be less than 15%, which ensures good listening conditions. Fortunately the acoustic design of the hall started from early design stages and continued until the completion of the project. The supervision provided close attention to the minor details of the structure including testing of material and sound quality inside the hall at different stages. The outcome of the overall acoustic checking of the hall is satisfactory: The measured reverberation time inside the hall, unoccupied, is within 2.2 and 2.5 seconds and the estimated Rt., occupied, is within 1.2 and 2.0 seconds at mid frequencies. The % AlCONS is equal to 5.44 8.01 empty and 1.6-2.53 occupied while sound pressure level distribution inside the hall, unoccupied, is within + or 4 dB.