Studies on development of evaluation method for wood-based floors. Part 1. Evaluating the attenuational capacity of human locomotor system due to the acceleration at several parts of the human body

Experiments were conducted to compare the impact on several parts of the body caused by the striking of the heel during human gait. In these experiments, five kinds of wood flooring that have differing levels of light weight-impact sound insulating efficiency were used. The obtained results were as follows: 1) The generated acceleration of calcaneus varied with the difference of flooring. According to the regression analysis, the open polygonal relationship between bound back coefficient of floor and acceleration of calcaneus was determined. 2) The impact force given to the calcaneus propagated from the heel to the forehead after most of the force being absorbed at the ankle and the knee. We found direct correlation between the subjective feeling of floor pliabilty and the force to the leg. Therefore, it was suggested that the measurement of the force to the ankle and the knee was important in evaluating the efficiency of floors.