Field Testing and Investigation of the Dynamic Performance and Comfort of Timber Floors

Field tests were conducted on timber floors in three wood-framed buildings in order to obtain their dynamic characteristics and evaluate the vibration comfort. The measured fundamental vibration frequency, damping ratio and root-mean-square acceleration, were used to evaluate human comfort caused by timber floor vibration. The results show that the fundamental vibration period of the thirteen tested timber floors was between 9.96Hz and 18.70Hz, which is sufficiently outside the frequency range of human activities excitation to preclude the resonance of timber floors. The thirteen timber floors in the test program satisfied the vibration control standards when the vibration environments and duration were taken into consideration. The damping ratios of the timber floors show a strong amplitude dependence, with high damping ratios correlated with large vibration amplitude. The average value of the damping ratio obtained from the impulse load tests was 5.05%, which was suitable for timber floors under normal human activities. In practice, vibration should be considered during the design of large-span timber floors.