Sika Collaborates with Delta Acoustics of Denmark

SikaFloor® Marine, the marine division of Sika and a world leader in marine acoustics technology and solutions, is collaborating with leading acoustics specialist, DELTA Acoustics of Denmark to tackle the issue of quantifying the reduction of structure borne noise by measuring the damping properties of their flooring solutions for commercial vessels.

“The practice for producing measurable values for airborne and impact noise reduction on ships is well established and the performance of these various systems can be quantified, however, there is currently no ISO standard for measuring structure borne sound and damping properties for marine floors and bulkheads, says Tony Jenkins SikaFloor® Marine Key Account Manager for Shipping. “Working with DELTA Acoustics of Denmark, we are now able to measure this reduction of magnitude and provide this information to the acoustic experts involved in the design of vessels.”

DELTA Acoustics of Denmark’s Senior Specialist in Acoustics, Leif Ødegaard said, “We have a long tradition of working with various transport modes to help reduce noise and vibration. Marine vessels are inherently designed to be stiff structures but they also need to be lightweight. This means that noise sources such as propulsion systems and generators act as sources of vibrational energy that can manifest throughout the vessel as structure-borne noise. Our acousticians are able to measure structure borne noise on ships by using a specially built tool to calculate vibrations. The impact of the vibrations is then assessed from different types of sources. We are also able to produce audio files that accurately reflect how a future source of noise will sound in a given landscape. This helps companies like Sika® when developing its flooring solutions and advising the best products to use to combat noise in a specific area of a ship.”

SikaFloor® Marine produce an extensive range of flooring systems, from thin lightweight systems, to heavy duty for the most demanding environments that are class leading in airborne, impact and structure-borne noise loss. All SikaFloor® Marine systems are A60 rated, fully IMO approved and all the systems are tested to the US ASTM standards and recognized by the Japanese maritime standards.