DIN EN 16205:2013-09

This European Standard specifies a laboratory measurement method to determine noise radiated from a floor covering on a standard concrete floor when excited by a standard tapping machine. A floor test facility according to EN ISO 10140 for impact and airborne sound measurements is used. It consists of two medium sized and medium damped rooms above each other, separated by a standard homogeneous concrete floor. As a walking noise source, a standard tapping machine according to EN ISO 10140 is applied. Several average sound pressure level measurements in third-octave bands are made in the upper and lower rooms with the bare floor either uncovered or covered with pads or sufficiently large "full-size" specimens of the tested flooring. In the upper room the reverberation times with large specimens and with merely pads present shall be determined. The walking sound pressure level is then calculated from the sound power directly radiated from the floor covering into the upper room plus the sound power from the bare floor under the floor covering, which radiates back into the upper room. Finally the A-weighted walking sound pressure level is calculated from the measured average sound pressure levels. The radiation from the bare floor through the floor covering is corrected for deviations of the actual laboratory floor from the reference spectrum in Annex B. Furthermore, the tapping machine self noise theoretically cancels out and therefore is not needed explicitly. However, because of the uncertainty of the measured quantities, the resulting walking sound pressure level may become very uncertain and even complex, in particular when a loud tapping machine is used and the flooring does not radiate much itself. All details, such as test facility requirements, tapping machine characteristics, positioning of tapping machine and microphones, averaging etcetera, are kept as close as possible to the requirements of laboratory measurements of impact noise as given in EN ISO 10140 and EN ISO 1408. The test standard is particularly directed to manufacturers of floor coverings and independent test laboratories. The committee responsible for the standard is NA 062-02-31 AA "Schalldämmung und Schallabsorption, Messung und Bewertung" ("Sound reduction and sound absorption; Measurement and evaluation") at DIN.