One of the world’s top acoustic door manufacturers, IAC of Winchester, has designed and manufactured their largest-ever Z frame acoustic steel doors – 6 metres high! – for a UK university auditorium.
IAC installed 8 world-class acoustic doors in the stunning 460-seat auditorium at the University of Hertfordshire. The auditorium, which offers excellent facilities both for entertainment and conferences, forms part of the new £120m de Havilland campus, the largest higher education development in the UK and built on the former airfield site. To protect nearby halls of residence and the local community from any noise nuisance, acoustic doors were a crucial element to the auditorium project.
Of the 8 high performance doors IAC designed and supplied, the stars of the show are undoubtedly the single-leaf, Z-frame 50dB doors that measure a staggering 6 metres high and 2 metres wide.
Scott Simmons is Product Manager for Doors at IAC: “These doors are real giants but posed no problems for us thanks to our latest manufacturing investment in our Winchester factory. We’ve been designing and making acoustic doors for 50 years and to my knowledge we are one of just a few companies in the UK with the necessary design and manufacturing expertise for such 6-metre wonders!”
“These giant access doors allow stage scenery to be stored without being dismantled. This makes a real difference for us, saving a great deal of time and effort,” says Angela Martyn, Head of Public Affairs at the University, “We also had another problem keeping noise out rather than in, from the road close by and IAC solved that problem, too for us. We’re delighted with the results all round.”
The two double-leaf link door sets that IAC fitted, lead from the auditorium directly to the outside world. So, to achieve a very high level of acoustic separation (60dB+), a link door arrangement was devised. This comprises two doors linked together but acoustically isolated at the same time. By designing the inner door smaller than the outer one, they both open together in the same direction. Whereas in the past, to attenuate the noise effectively, a two-metre-long lobby with a door at each end would have been needed, IAC’s design enables the doors to be installed very close indeed to one another so saving space and construction materials.
Further information on IAC acoustic doors can be found on www.iacl.co.uk or contact Scott Simmons on 01962 87301 scotts@iacl.co.uk
