Vibration Serviceability of a Building Floor Structure. II: Vibration Evaluation and Assessment
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VIEW THE ORIGINAL ARTICLEPublication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 24, Issue 6
Abstract
People are generally very sensitive to unexpected vibrations. Very small levels of building floor movements due to activities such as walking can become annoying to occupants. Accurate prediction, evaluation, and assessment of vibrations can greatly assist engineers and architects to design cost-effective building structures without such problems. In an attempt to clarify some of the issues related to this common serviceability problem, this paper presents a study of the various parameters used for the evaluation and assessment of building vibrations. Provisions of several current standards and design guides commonly used in North America and U.K. to evaluate and assess building vibrations as related to human perception and comfort are reviewed. These provisions are then applied using the vibrations measured during a number of walking tests conducted on a large cantilevered office building floor. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that the vibration dose value (VDV) recommended by some standards and design guides provides a consistent and reasonable method of evaluation of building floor vibrations. In addition, new relationships between VDV, peak frequency-weighted acceleration, and crest factor are established to estimate the VDV.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSFCMMI-0324471. This support is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Cooperation of Structural Design, Inc., and, in particular, of Mr. Paul Dannels is greatly appreciated.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 24 • Issue 6 • December 2010
Pages: 508 - 518
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 19, 2009
Accepted: Mar 5, 2010
Published online: Nov 15, 2010
Published in print: Dec 2010
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