Fourthly, it was also necessary to assess the reverberation time in order to
quantify the impact sound insulation of the pavement (without and with the corn
cob particleboard). Therefore, this measure was experimentally estimated in the
receiving room and its average values are shown in Fig. 7 and Table 3. Finally, it
was possible to quantify the impact sound insulation of the pavement based on
the above measures. The obtained results are presented in Fig. 8a and b for the original
and for the sound insulated pavement of the receiving room, respectively. This
information is complemented with the data displayed in Table 4. These data correspond
to the weightened impact sound insulation levels with the reverberation
time correction (L0ntw), for the two scenarios (without and with the panel), which
were calculated according to [27], and in which the contribution of each frequency
band under study for the final impact sound insulation index is defined.
Comparing the results presented in Fig. 8a and b, a sound insulation benefit of
the pavement is clearly achieved by applying corn cob particleboard on the floor of
the emitting room. The impact sound insulation gain (DLw) was estimated in 30 dB.
This result leads to the conclusion that the proposed corn cob particleboard may
have an interesting ability in terms of sound insulation. In order to complement this
analysis, Table 5, given in [9], presents the impact sound insulation gains of different
natural (e.g. kenaf, coconut fibre, sheep wool, cork and cellulose) and traditional
(e.g. glass wool and expanded polystyrene) sound insulation products. All the products
have a thickness of 2 cm contrasting with the 3 cm of thickness of the studied
corn cob particleboard. Taking into account the above described experimental sim-