Review of Vibration Assessment Methods for Steel-Timber Composite Floors

Abstract

Human comfort is recognized as an essential serviceability requirement for timber floors. Although several standards and design criteria are available for designing steel and concrete floors, there is no consensus among researchers on the applicability of such design methods to timber composite floors. Adding steel to timber floors is intended to create long spans, however, vibration is still a major challenge in achieving longer spans. To highlight the extent of this issue, a comprehensive search in the literature was conducted. The most common vibration criteria that may be used to assess the performance of steel-timber composite floors under human-induced vibrations were reviewed. For lightweight composite floors, the 1 kN deflection limit was found to be the most suitable vibration limit based on a wide range of subjective evaluation studies. For composite floors comprising steel and heavier timber subfloors, the relevance of 1 kN deflection criterion and other criteria suggested in the literature are questionable due to the lack of subjective evaluation studies. In the advent of advanced computing and data analysis, conducting detailed numerical analysis validated by accurate on-site measurements is recommended. Special attentions should be given to accurate estimation of connection stiffness and damping ratio according to the findings of this study.