Time-domain model of a tapping machine

In the past few years the use of lightweight buildings made of prefabricated wooden elements has become more common. Ease of installation, high accuracy and lightness of such buildings has attracted builders and designers. Sweden, having a large coverage of renewable forests has an increasing interest in multi-storey wooden buildings. However noise and vibration in wooden buildings is an issue of concern especially low frequency impact sound due to footsteps. Impact sound insulation of floors can be measured based on ISO 140-7 using standardized tapping machine as excitation source. Experience has shown that in many cases the results obtained by this method do not correlate with annoyance experienced by inhabitants. On the other hand, the method presented in ISO 140-7 has usually shown to be relevant for the evaluation of impact sound transmission of concrete floors. Discovering the source of this contradiction requires deeper understanding of the impact process. A first step would be to find the difference between contact forces of the tapping machine on different floor materials. One could then correlate it with inhabitants’ perceived annoyance. This paper is the first step of this investigation which is a part of a Swedish research project called AkuLite. In this work a time-dependent model based on Hertz’s contact law is presented for the tapping machine. The model is validated by measurements on a homogeneous concrete floor. Also the contribution of parameters such as damping and stiffness of floor material on the resulting impact force and vibrations is studied