| Abstract | In the process of designing buildings, architects have to consider many aspects from different disciplines in order to choose the most appropriate materials and design details. Regarding only sound insulation, a 320 mm deep wood framed floor performs better for most sound insulation ratings than an eight times heavier 150 mm thick concrete floor, especially if a heavy topping on a resilient layer is added on both. This paper presents the results of a small study comparing the direct sound insulation of a wood frame and a concrete base floor (both bare and with a heavy topping), measured with four standardized sources (Airborne Sound and Tapping Machine according to ISO 10140 Parts 2 & 3 respectively, and Ball and Tire both according JIS 1418-2 and KS F 2810-2). As mentioned above, this study shows that with a topping the wood floor performs better than the concrete floor over all standard frequency ranges. It was also found that the improvement of sound insulation due to a topping is very similar for all sources except for the Tire or “Bang Machine”, which is an outlier probably due to its extremely forceful impact. |
|---|
