Thesis (M. S.)--Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Cunefare, Kenneth A.; Committee Member: Qu, Jianmin; Committee Member: Ryherd, Erica. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Laminate flooring manufacturers have received negative feedback from customers on the sound quality of laminate flooring installations. Customers express a preference for the sound of traditional hardwood floors over that of laminate flooring composites. Consumers notice a difference between the sounds created by a footfall between laminate flooring and hardwood flooring. They perceive the laminate flooring sound of a footfall to be annoying and associate it to the flooring being of a lower quality. No objective test procedure exists to validate the marketing claims of the performance of these products. The objective of the work in this thesis is to develop a test method that evaluates the human perception of the sound quality of footfall noise on laminate flooring composites.