Wood-Floor Vibration Design Criteria

In the United States, floors in wood buildings are currently designed according to strength and deflection criteria under static uniformly distributed loads. With the introduction of engineered joist products such as I-joists (I-J) and parallel-chord trusses, spans used to construct modern wood floors have increased significantly. It has become evident that the static deflection criteria for the design of SPAN/360 may not guarantee the acceptable vibrational performance of long-span lightweight floors. Accompanying serviceability concerns have led to an increase in complaints that have yet to be addressed by the U.S. building codes. In recent years, several dynamic design criteria have been proposed to address vibrational serviceability. This paper will evaluate six criteria proposed by other researchers in two different ways. First, a design-deflection factor will be determined based on specific floor dimensions and average material properties. Second, the design results of the individual criteria will be used to determine the acceptability of selected experimental floors that were part of a larger study on floor vibrations.