Damping assessment of light wooden assembly with and without damping material

Damping elastomers are often used in lightweight wooden constructions and are believed to have good sound insulating effects. In the present study the influence on the structural behaviour by using elastomer damping material (Sylomer (R)) in the joints, with particular respect to footsteps and floor vibrations, has been investigated. A full scale wooden mock-up was assembled with two different joint configurations and studied under free-free boundary conditions. In the first configuration, the joints between the floor and underlying walls were screwed together. In the second configuration the floor was floating on top of ribs of elastomer damping material, equivalent to normal building practice when this material is used. Both configurations were analysed and evaluated using experimental modal analysis, in the frequency interval 10-115 Hz. The relative (viscous) damping ratios of the modes were found to be on average 1.2% for the screwed configuration and 2.1% for the configuration with elastomer damping material in the joints. The damping was found to vary significantly between modes in the elastomer case. It was found that at low frequencies damping was high for modes with large motion on the edge where the elastomer material was. At higher frequencies (above approx. 40 Hz), however, the damping for this configuration decreased. This is believed to be caused by a vibration isolation effect of the elastomer, decoupling the floor from the walls at higher frequencies. To assess the differences in vibration levels between the two configurations, mean acceleration levels of well spread points on the different building parts where computed and evaluated. It was found that above approximately 70 Hz, the mean vibration level in the elastomer configuration was significantly lower than for the screwed configuration. Below 70 Hz, however, for many frequencies the mean vibration level for the elastomer configuration was significantly higher than for the screwed configuration (as should be expected in vibration isolation). Problems with springiness and footsteps are due to loads in the frequency range of 10-50 Hz, this could indicate that elastomers, used as in the present study, could worsen these types of problems, although improving higher frequency acoustic performance. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.