Impact Sound Insulation of Floors Using Recycled Polyurethane Foam

Noise is the most common cause of complaint to environmental health officers in England and impact noise through ceilings has been identified as being particularly disturbing to occupants of dwellings. Floating floors incorporating a resilient layer are an accepted method of reducing impact noise and traditionally rockwool or mineral fibre quilts have been used. Flexible polyurethane open cell foams are now used in some systems in thinner layers than mineral fibre quilts and are more pleasant to handle. These have been the subject of research at Sheffield Hallam University and laboratory investigations of their static and dynamic properties suggested that reconstituted open cell foam produced from scrap polyurethane might offer advantages over virgin open cell foam which is used in some floating floor systems. This paper briefly describes the laboratory tests carried out on open cell polyurethane foams and presents results from the first field tests on flooring systems comprising reconstituted foam now available in the market.