Evaluation of Pedestrian-Induced In-Service Building Floor Performance Based on Short-Term Monitoring

Abstract

Pedestrian-induced vibration (PIV) is often the most persistent issue affecting the floor serviceability of buildings. These vibrations may cause discomfort to occupants and may also adversely affect the performance of sensitive equipment residing on the floor. Resolving floor vibration problems in built structures often requires costly mitigation measures. Using monitoring techniques, a floor’s response to PIV can be evaluated. The purpose of long-term floor monitoring is to have a comprehensive insight into the vibration levels. Due to the associated costs and challenges, long-term monitoring is not common. The alternatives, short-term monitoring and controlled walking tests, may not reflect the actual vibrations of the floor but are easier to perform. By using confidence interval (CI) analysis, CI width analysis, and the Kullback–Leibler divergence (KLD) method to evaluate measured PIV from a floor, this study proposes a methodology for obtaining the sufficient short-term monitoring duration (MD) that is required to evaluate the long-term measured PIV with acceptable accuracy. Also, the appropriate percentile(s) for evaluating floor performance is investigated. Two methods are discussed for deciding which percentile to use when evaluating floor performance. The first method is based on selecting the probability of non-exceedance (PONE) according to the PIV guidelines, and the second method is based on the definitions of the types of vibration based on ISO 10137 curves. The sufficient MD is obtained from the relative error calculation of the results. The results of this research provide a more realistic and improved methodology for analyzing the vibration performance of floors.