Guidelines to Minimize Floor Vibrations from Building Occupants

One major serviceability consideration in modern buildings is excessive floor vibrations due to occupant activities. Floor vibrations are becoming a more important design consideration with the use of high-strength, light-weight materials in building structures, longer floor spans, and more flexible framing systems. Floor systems in shopping malls, pedestrian walkways and concourses, and gymnasiums are relatively light and susceptible to vibration problems. Methods for accurate prediction of these vibrations and evalution of floor systems are not readily available to the design community. An investigation is made into the characteristics of crowd-induced loads. These characteristics include the density of the crowd, randomness of crowd movement, crowd activity, and temporal interaction between individuals. Analytical procedures are developed to determine the influence of each load characteristic on the dynamic response of floor systems. Design guidelines are developed for floors in malls, gymnasiums, and walkways subjected to crowd-induced loads.