Bending Moment of a Soundwall Under Windloads

Deflection and Bending Moment of a Soundwall Under Windloads 

Soundwall is a noise barrier, built on an existing highway or freeway (or as part of a new highway project) to shield residences from the road noise. Typically, sound-walls are constructed next to residences where noise level is or above the 66-dB 

There were several attempts to construct and test soundwalls made of WPC materials. Although noise barrier properties of those were fair and good, composite soundwalls typically had two major problems large deflection of the wall and high cantilever load on the vertical posts. 

Here is one example. A wall section consisting of 14 tongue-and-groove 8-ft boards (width 5-3/16 of each) on top of each other has a dimension of 6 ft (high) by 8 ft (long). It is supported by one 6-ft (above the ground) post. At wind pressure of 25 Ib/fF (see below), the bending moment at the cantilever section is equal to 

For the calculations, a factor of 144 should be introduced to the denominator, if a windload is measured in Ib/ft. Hence, the bending moment at IT = 25 Ib/ft equals to 

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