Lightweight floor screed with increased impact sound reduction

Abstract

Increasing users’ requirements force to provide better and better solutions for reducing impact sounds. A lightweight floor screed can be a favorable solution for existing buildings with limited ceiling load capacity, where typical highly effective floating floors are too heavy to be used. In the paper further development of the impact sound reduction measurement method for small lightweight floor screed samples is presented. In order to protect the top layer of the sample from the hammers of the tapping machine, a thin concrete layer was coupled with the sample. What is more, a thin layer of sand below the sample was tested in order to improve the connection between the sample and the concrete floor. Based on obtained results, the concrete top layer and the sand bottom layer reduce slightly the effectiveness of the screed but decrease the uncertainty of the results significantly