Dynamic Characterization of Steel Decks with Damping Material by Impact Test

Abstract

Acoustic insulation optimization of the ship decks to contain impact noise is generally obtained by adopting suitable types of viscoelastic resilient materials. For this purpose, it is necessary to be able to make a correct choice of material. This is obtained by experimentally identifying the vibro-acoustic behavior of the combined semi-reverberant room and floor system according to an ISO standard (ISO 16283-2). These tests are generally onerous as they require the availability of the floor with both trimmed and untrimmed configurations. In addition, qualified technicians are needed to correctly spread the material on the floor. Finally, after the test has ended, the material must be removed and disposed of properly. To reduce this wasted time and cost, in this paper, a new methodology is proposed that predicts the vibro-acoustic behavior of the floor and viscoelastic material assembled together starting from separate dynamic information of the two components. Once these two elements are properly experimentally identified, the proposed method foresees the vibro-acoustic response of the overall system in presence of an impact footfall excitation.