Development and validation of a laminate flooring system sound quality test method

Laminate flooring manufacturers have received negative feedback from customers on the sound quality of laminate flooring installations. Customers express a preference for the sound of traditional hardwood floors over that of laminate flooring composites. Consumers notice a difference between the sounds created by a footfall between laminate flooring and hardwood flooring. They perceive the laminate flooring sound of a footfall to be annoying and associate it to the flooring being of a lower quality. No objective test procedure exists to validate the marketing claims of the performance of these products. The objective of the work in this thesis is to develop a test method that evaluates the human perception of the sound quality of footfall noise on laminate flooring composites.

Department dc:contributor.department

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Georgia Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Wilson, James Harris

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cunefare, Kenneth A.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Qu, Jianmin
• Ryherd, Erica

• Impact
• Flooring
• Laminate
• Sound quality
• Psychoacoustics
• Acoustics

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1853/29660

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.gatech.edu:1853/29660