Ethylene vinyl acetate (eva) aggregates usage evaluation for lightweight concrete subfloor to reduce impact sound in flooring systems

Abstract

Civil construction, nowadays has to deal with comfort and habitability requirements and raw material lack. Thus, it is desired to reuse materials. In this context, the subfloor plays an important role in providing users with comfort, being an interesting object of analysis. Thus, this study aims to design lightweight concrete slabs with ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) aggregates for subfloors, with two grain sizes of conventional sand replaced with EVA. The experimental program is composed of four unit mixes, three of them varying the ratio between EVA coarse and natural fine aggregates, and the one with higher quantity of EVA coarse aggregates was replaced sand for EVA fine aggregates. The subfloor slabs were molded with three thickness of 3, 5 and 7 centimeters, and a set of 3cm slabs plus 1cm of conventional coating. Slabs were submitted to specific mass tests and L’nT,w mean standardized impact sound pressure level tests. Results showed a correlation between two variables, being that 7cm thickness slabs with smaller specific mass, with total aggregate replacement, presented noise intensity reductions of 17dB in comparison to 7cm slabs with natural sand and smaller content of EVA coarse aggregate; and 28dB reduction in relation to the reference.