ArcelorMittal offers a range of solutions that are developed and designed to absorb vibrations accordingly and diminish excessive vibrations in order to improve occupier comfort and safety:

• Composite floors: Cofraplus® and Cofrastra® flooring decks combined with in situ concrete
• Cellular beams: ACB® beams with circular openings and Angelina® beams with sinusoidal openings
• Shallow floor beams: SFB and IFB beams, CoSFB

Our experts can assist you in finding the solution that best meets your project requirements.

Occupants’ comfort is of the utmost importance when it comes to building design guidance related to human induced loads. Excessive floor vibration, or vibrations in general, can lead to serious inconvenience and annoyance and may even cause the structure to exceed its serviceability limit state. Structural vibrations induced by human activity, such as walking, jumping, and running, as well as vibrations caused by standard mechanical equipment, are a crucial factor in structure design.

In multi-storey buildings, floor vibration is sometimes a serviceability limit state that is critical to the design. There is no specific rule in the Eurocodes, although there may be limits presented in the National Annexes.

Floor structures are designed for ultimate limit state and serviceability limit state criteria:

• Ultimate limit states are those related to strength and stability
• Serviceability limit states are also related to vibrations and are therefore governed by stiffness, masses, damping, and the excitation mechanisms

For slender floor structures, as made in steel or composite construction, serviceability criteria could govern the design.

In terms of vibration serviceability assessment, the following factors should be taken into consideration:

• specification of tolerable vibration by introduction of acceptance classes
• prediction of floor response to human induced vibration with respect to the intended use of the building