Floor impact sound reduction according to thickness of damping layer in concrete slab

Abstract

Flexural wave propagation influences floor impact sound in a concrete floor structure. In this study, the dynamic characteristics for flexural vibration were evaluated using the beam-transfer function method. From the sandwich beams with viscoelastic damping materials, the bending stiffness, loss factors of the structures were analyzed. The effects of thickness of a damping layer were investigated. From the result of the transfer function, the magnitude was relatively small and the natural frequency was shifted to low frequency when using viscoelastic damping material. When using the viscoelastic damping material, the loss factor increased more effectively than when using the polyethylene layer. Therefore, the effective damping treatments are proper to reduce floor impact sound, since the damping in the concrete structure is small.