Sound Insulation of seMi-thick PLatEs (SIMPLE)

噪音是城市健康问题的主要原因，在危害方面仅次于空气质量（欧洲生活质量研究，2020年）。据世界卫生组织保守估计，西欧国家因环境噪音而损失的残疾调整寿命年包括：心脏病损失6.1万年；睡眠障碍有903000年，烦恼有654000年。在西方，大约87%的时间是在室内度过的，因此建筑物必须使居住者与噪音隔绝，以改善健康和福祉。气候危机正迫使建筑行业做出改变。未来，更多的建筑元素将在工厂中预制，使用更可持续的材料，如交叉层压木材（CLT）。目前，还没有可靠的方法来预测声学性能，这阻碍了CLT隔板的发展。相反，CLT的声学性能是根据具体情况进行测量的，以确保产品符合法律要求。这种测试是大规模的，涉及昂贵的基础设施，这可能是令人望而却步的，特别是对于开发新产品的中小型企业。此外，SARS-CoV-2大流行导致研发预算减少或重新定向，这意味着小型初创企业在资助创新方面面临重大障碍。SIMPLE的首要目标是通过使用结合预测和测量的混合方法创建通用的设计方法来释放CLT产品的隔音潜力。这种新方法将减少声学测试的范围，从而降低开发成本，从而提高制造商和建筑行业的经济效率。因此，从长远来看，SIMPLE将有助于降低室内噪音水平，改善许多人的健康和福祉。

Noise is a major contributor to health problems in cities, second only to air quality in terms of harms (European Quality of Life Study, 2020). The World Health Organisation conservatively estimated the disability-adjusted life-years lost from environmental noise in western European countries to include: 61,000 years for heart disease; 903,000 years for sleep disturbance, and 654,000 years for annoyance. In the West, around 87% of time is spent indoors, so buildings must insulate occupants from noise to improve health and well-being. The climate emergency is forcing the construction industry to change. In future, many more building elements will be prefabricated in factories using more sustainable materials such as Cross Laminated Timber (CLT). Currently, there are no robust methods to predict acoustic performance, which is holding back the development of CLT partitions. Instead, the acoustic performance of CLT is measured on a case-by-case basis to ensure products satisfy legislative requirements. Such tests are large-scale and involve expensive infrastructure, which can be prohibitive, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises developing newproducts. Furthermore, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused a reduction or redirection of research and development budgets, meaning that small start-ups face major hurdles to fund innovation. The overarching goal of SIMPLE is to unlock the potential of CLT products for sound insulation by creating a generic approach to design using hybrid methods that combine prediction and measurement. This new approach will reduce development costs, by reducing the extent of acoustic testing, and so improve economic efficiency for manufacturers and the construction industry. Thus, in the long term, SIMPLE will facilitate lower noise levels indoors, improving health and well-being for many people.