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Short test procedure for the reduction of transmitted impact sound by floor coverings

03.12.2004

Initial investigations into the applicability of a short test method for the reduction of transmitted impact sound through the use of soft floor coverings have been carried out within the scope of a scientific cooperation with the Research Institute for Leather and Plastic Sheets (FILK). The important advantage of the short test method is that the use of a building acoustic test suite is avoided. This reduces the measurement effort considerably compared to the to date only standardized procedure of ISO 140-8. It has turned out that the results of the short test method are a good approximation with respect to the results of the standardized procedure (Figure 1), except for a systematic shift of 2 dB. A further result of the investigations is that an increase of the roughness of the support leads to larger values for both methods in the case of non-glued coverings. Additionally, the way of excitation (ISO tapping machine or free-falling hammer) and the hardening of the soft floor covering turned out to be of major importance for the measurement result, whereas the influence of the material, size and bearing of the support is comparably small.

Reduction of transmitted impact sound

Figure 1. Reduction of transmitted impact sound LW determined by the short test method in comparison to the results of the standardized method (ISO 140-8) for 12 different soft floor coverings

Contact person:

V. Wittstock, FB 1.7, AG 1.71, Email: volker.wittstock@ptb.de