Mermet acoustic fabrics specified for Newcastle College

When Newcastle College required replacement blinds for a large roofed area, it specified Mermet Acoustis 50 to supply both light control and acoustic comfort.

The 400 square metre glazed roof was shaded with the installation of 36 motorised blinds, fabricated using Acoustis 50 in Slate Grey. Measuring 2 metres wide and 6 metres in length, the robust and durable blinds provided excellent light control with a visible transmittance (VT) level of 5%.

What is acoustic comfort?

Acoustic issues arise not because of noise volume, but a lack of clarity to sound. Referred to by acousticians as speech intelligibility or sound reverberation, this is caused by sound rebounding from surfaces of differing distances away from the source, with their reflections taking varying lengths of time to return. When a number of people are speaking at one time, this becomes a constant stream of sound.

This is resolved by removing or reducing the reflections. Mermet Acoustis 50 is an acoustically absorbent fabric measuring less than 1mm in thickness which can be used to cover the reflective surfaces.

Acoustical transparency  

The interiors industry regularly seeks acoustically transparent fabric to cover walls or ceilings so that acoustically absorbent foams hidden behind them can still function.

Mermet Screen Vision and Satine fabrics can be used in these applications, whilst also offering dimensional stability, top level fire ratings and an attractive, easy to maintain finish.

Glass fibre core 

Be it acoustic absorbance or transparency, the key to mermen fabric use is its glass fibre core within the yarn. With over 60 years experience of weaving glass fibre, Mermet has been providing coated yarns for the solar shading industry for the past 40 years.

Manufacturing the yarn in addition to weaving the fabric gives Mermet the control and expertise to engineer properties such as UV stabilisers, additional fire retardation elements and colour pigment.

The Satine, Screen Vision and Acoustis 50 fabrics are three of almost 20 fabrics in the current 2015-18 collection.