Investigation of damping materials for heavy-weight floor impact sounds in concrete structures

Multi-layers of surface materials were investigated for the isolation of floor impact sounds in concrete structures. Both resilient and viscoelastic damping materials were tested according to the modified method of ANSI S2.22 for calculating elastic modulus and loss factor. The dynamic characteristics of the concrete structures subjected to heavy-weight floor impacts were modeled by the compressional damping theory, using sandwiched beams. Results show that the viscoelastic damping materials are more effective than the resilient materials. In field measurements, the insertion loss of the heavy-weight impact sounds, which was mainly affected by the modal characteristics at low frequencies, was higher in floor structures with the damping materials.