Development of standardized impact sources for laboratory measurement of sound transmission through lightweight walls

Abstract Constructing housing by using lightweight walls is still a trend, and people are skeptical about the sound of such walls. Following the result of a questionnaire survey it was found that impact sound through lightweight walls is the fourth annoying noise source in Taiwan. Since there is no standard method of measuring impact sound through walls, this study looks at the possibility of developing a standardized impact source for measuring impact sound in a laboratory. Therefore various impactors were designed to relate certain impact sources to real life situations. The standardized impactor design is designed by comparing the characteristics of the real-life impactor with that of the designed impactors. The results of this study shows that there are two classifications of impactors to be considered. A steel ball of 50 mm in diameter is regarded as a hard impactor, and, a silicon ball of 100 mm in diameter is a soft one. A system for measuring impact sound through lightweight walls in the laboratory is also proposed.