With most people living in high-rise apartment buildings in Korea,... inter-floor noise causes many disputes between neighbors.
But there's a new technology that may help reduce the annoyance.
Kim Min-ji has more.
A noisy upstairs neighbor can cause a lot of stress, especially at night.
The footsteps or other sounds that can be heard between floors are transmitted via low frequency vibrations.
Materials aimed at reducing the noise have been developed... and some apartment buildings have even tried filling the space between floors -- but neither method has been very effective.
Now, researchers in Korea have developed a new technology that could take care of the problem.
They have devised a new acoustic absorption structure with springs... that reduces between-floor noise by absorbing low-frequency vibrations.

"The theory here is that the device controls the vibrations and acts as a spring."

The device can reduce the transmission of noise between floors by up to 30 percent,... and the installation cost is also 20 percent less than existing soundproofing methods.
The researchers hope the device can be used not only to soundproof floors,... but also in a wider range of fields.

"The technology can be adapted to manufacture landing gear for planes or wind-powered electrical generators -- basically anything that needs to counter big or fast vibrations.

The findings have been published in the March issue of the journal Transactions on Mechatronics.
Kim Min-ji, Arirang News.