Two distinct sections of research are presented in this thesis. The first section summarizes research conducted on laboratory-built floors. Floors were built and tested to determine the plywood contribution to increasing the bending stiffness, number of joists effective in resisting applied load, and calculation of fundamental frequency. The second section summarizes research conducted on in-situ floors. Procedures were developed to numerically integrate acceleration and velocity data to obtain displacement values. Tests were conducted on 86 subjectively rated wood floors to determine average frequency and peak displacement values. From these tests, a design criterion was developed to predict acceptability of a wood floor system to vibrations. / Master of Science

This thesis presents the effects of cutouts in joists on the dynamic performance of wood floors. Ten floors and four-floor joist types were used to evaluate the vibrational response of wood floors with and without cutouts in the joists. Each floor was also subjected to different boundary conditions and imposed load during the evaluation. Two types of tests were performed on the floors, a free vibration test and a drop weight test. Data collected from these tests were used to determine several dynamic variables. These variables are the peak displacement, peak acceleration, resonant frequencies, separation of resonant frequencies, root-mean-squared (RMS) acceleration, log-decrement damping ratio, and modal damping ratios. Included in the thesis are the results of a static test (load sharing) performed on the floors with and without cutouts in the joists. / Master of Science