*Article* **Lightweight Composite Partitions with High Sound Insulation in Hotel Interior Spaces: Design and Application**

**Ting Qu, Bo Wang and Hequn Min \***

Key Laboratory of Urban and Architectural Heritage Conservation, Ministry of Education, School of Architecture, Southeast University, 2 Sipailou, Nanjing 210096, China

**\*** Correspondence: hqmin@seu.edu.cn

**Abstract:** Sound insulation performance of partitions is one of the key factors contributing to the comfort of the hotel interior spaces. Based on the theory of constrained layer damping, this study proposed the light-weight composite partition structure with high sound insulation, which was composed of gypsum boards of different thicknesses and an isobutylene isoprene rubber board. The normal incidence sound transmission loss of the structure was evaluated through finite element simulations as well as experiments, which were conducted in a standing wave tube. The results show that the simulation and experimental results of two kinds of lightweight high sound insulation multilayer composite partition walls are closely aligned; the surface density of the optimized partition wall was less than 42 kg/m2, although the normal incidence STL exceeded 51.8 dB at 200 Hz and at 1/3 octave of 1000 Hz with the maximum value of 58.5 dB. The lightweight composite partition wall with high sound insulation has a huge application potential in enhancing the sound environment quality of hotels.

**Keywords:** hotel interior spaces; high sound insulation; lightweight composite structure partition; sound transmission loss
