New Acoustic Test Procedure for Hard Floor Covering Systems with Soft Underlay
Rudolf Bütikofer · Acta acustica united with Acustica · 2010
Walking with hard heeled shoes generates especially on laminate floorings awell noticeable "clack-clack" sound.Heard in the same room where the walker is, this sound is called "walking sound" and sometimes also "drum sound".In order to qualify acoustically the different flooring products, at est method is needed.The goal was to define ar eliable measurement method which provides comparable results to real walking of an experienced walker using ar eference shoe.Numerous studies have shown that the ISO tapping machine used in building acoustics is not adequate for this purpose.After areviewofthe properties of the impact and the floor response, attention is givent ot he interaction of the impedance of shoe and floor.I nc ontrast to ah eavy concrete floor, the hard floor covering system with asoft underlay has impedance values in the same order of magnitude than the impacting heel.Thus, there is no easy waya round: If an impacting hammer is expected to evoket he same floor excitation than the shoe'sheel, the hammer has to have about the same source impedance than the shoe.An impact hammer with aweight of 200 grams an arather hard, resilient tip of 1.3 MN/m fulfills this requirement.