Steel-deck composite floor systems are being increasingly used in high-rise building construction, especially in Australia, as they are economical and easy to construct.
These composite floor systems use high strength materials to achieve longer spans and are thus slender. As a result, they are vulnerable to vibration induced under service loads. These floors are normally designed using static methods which will not reveal the true behaviour and miss the dynamic amplifications resulting in inappropriate designs, which ultimately cause vibration and discomfort to occupants.
At present there is no adequate design guidance to address the vibration in these composite floors, due to a lack of research information, resulting in wasteful post event retrofits.
To address this gap in knowledge, a comprehensive research project is presented in this thesis, which investigated the dynamic performance of composite floors under various human induced loads. A popular type of composite floor system was selected for this investigation and subjected to load models representing different human activities. These load models have variable parameters such as load intensity, activity type (contact ratio), activity frequency and damping and are applied as pattern loads to capture the maximum responses in terms of deflections and accelerations.
Computer models calibrated against experimental results are used in the analysis to generate the required information. The dynamic responses of deflections and accelerations are compared with the serviceability deflection limits and human comfort levels (of accelerations) to assess these floor types.
This thesis also treats the use of visco-elastic (VE) dampers to mitigate excessive vibrations in steel-deck composite floors. VE damper properties have been presented and their performances in reducing the excessive vibrations have been assessed this thesis.
The results identified possible occupancies under different loading conditions that can be used in planning, design and evaluation. The findings can also be used to plan retrofitting measures in problematic floor systems.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/265530 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | De Silva, Sandun S. |
| Publisher | Queensland University of Technology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Sandun S. De Silva |
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