Vibrational behaviour of timber floors

Abstract

A complete design methodology for timber floors must address the problem of annoying vibration caused by the occupants themselves. Proper controlling relies on good understanding nature of floor vibrations induced by human movements. This paper reviews the major findings on characteristics of the footstep forces and discusses mechanism of footstep-induced vibrations in timber floors. A numerical modelling procedure, which is based on the finite-element method, for obtaining the natural frequencies, mode shapes and vibration response of timber floor systems is presented. Using this numerical model, the effect of change in various floor parameters on vibrational performance of timber floors is investigated.