Floor vibrations due to walking loads

Traditionally floors are designed for static strength and stiffness. Improved methods of construction and design, using high strength-lightweight materials, have resulted in strong and stiff floors that display unsatisfactory dynamic behaviour when exposed to walking loads. The paper discusses a method, partly based on recent work at Eindhoven University of Technology, to predict the dynamic response of floors subjected to walking forces. Several floor types were tested and analysed by this method. The results of these tests are presented and compared to floor vibration criteria that are based on ISO 2631