Background. The three areas in wood building technology that concern stakeholders the most are fire safety, moisture, and sound insulation. Uncertainty about achieved impact sound insulation is of special concern. Satisfaction with impact sound insulation has been found to be worse in wooden than in concrete structures. The current acoustic methods have been developed mainly for concrete floors. These methods should be tested with wooden floors. 

Purpose. The project contributes both to the measurement methods of impact sound insulation and the objective rating methods used in trade and legislation, i.e. the single-number quantities of ISO 717-1 standard. Measurement methods and single-number quantities appropriate to rate the acoustic properties of wooden floors according to the noise annoyance are developed. The scientific work is based on laboratory measurements of floors, physical modeling of impact sound insulation, and psychoacoustic experiments of noise annoyance caused by impact sounds transmitted through floors. 

Desired outcomes. Project outcomes are suggestions for new standards for measurement and evaluation of wooden floors being in better agreement with human perception. All results are published in scientific journals. 

Execution. The project is conducted within April 2020 and March 2022. The project is executed by Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE, principal investigator, PI, Kirsi Jarnerö) in Vaxjö, Sweden, Linnaeus University (Lnu, PI Andreas Linderholt) in Vaxjö, Sweden, and Turku University for Applied Sciences (TUAS, PI Valtteri Hongisto) in Turku, Finland. 

Funding. The project receives public funding. The project received granting from the Call TFV II 2019 “Tandem Forest Values”. evaluated by KSLA The Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. The Swedish contribution is funded by KSLA and the Finnish contribution is funded by Ministry of the Environment, Finland. Industrial companies are not involved with the funding but they may be involved to the implementation of the project. 

Information about the call. https://www.ksla.se/call-tfv-ii-2019/

Information about the granting. https://www.ksla.se/anslag-stipendier/tandem-forest-values/granted-applications/

Information about RISE. https://www.ri.se/sv/vad-vi-gor/expertiser/trabyggande

Information about Lnu. https://lnu.se/en/

Information about TUAS. https://www.tuas.fi/en/research-and-development/research-groups/built-environment/