Reduction performance of floor impact sound of the existing apartment buildings in Korea

Recently, the revision of regulation in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, new apartment buildings are required to construct concrete slabs of 210 mm or more and to ensure floor construction with impact insulation performance within 4th grades. However, in Korea, most of the apartment buildings was constructed with a slab thickness of 120 ~ 180 mm prior to the enactment of the related laws in 2006. There are causing disputes and complaints due to floor impact sound. Therefore, this study investigates reduction performances of floor impact sound in the existing apartment buildings constructed before the effectuation of the legal regulation from Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport in Korea. Since the regulations were not applied to the existing apartment buildings, understanding of reduction performances of floor impact sound is important for effective redevelopment or retrofit construction process. In this study, field measurements according to KS F 2810-1 and KS F 2810-2 were carried out in the 70 existing apartment buildings. In addition, including 124 data from the literature review, the present state of reduction performances of floor impact sound in the existing apartment buildings was discussed. [This research was financially supported by the Seoul R&BD Program (No. PS150001) through the Research and Development for Regional Industry.]