Stadium vibration assessment for serviceability considering the vibration duration

Abstract

Vibration problems in grandstand structures have been getting more attention due to increasing slenderness of architectural components and the complexity of crowd loading for structural designers. The vibration serviceability checks under these conditions become a challenge in the design and operation stages. Regarding human comfort and tolerance to vibration, excessive vibrations due to occupant activities may affect their comfort or even cause panic, especially passive occupants who do not participate in generating the source of vibrations. Although durations of excessive vibrations have been proved as one of the most important factors affecting occupants' comfort, it remains a big challenge to be solved. In addition, the currently available approaches using raw acceleration, weighted RMS acceleration, Vibration dose values (VDV), etc. are not sufficient for serviceability assessment due to the lack of detailed guidance for obtaining the integration time and taking the duration of vibration into account. Therefore, in this current study, a new parameter and framework are proposed where the duration of vibration is incorporated with conventional data processing. The aim is to better examine vibration levels of structures and the corresponding likely reactions with an emphasis on grandstand structures. The experimental study shows that the proposed framework can successfully address the impact of duration time on determining the levels of vibrations and human comfort levels using the proposed parameter, and perception ranges.