Best Practices Guide for Controlling Wood Floor Vibration

Floor vibration due to walking has been a subject of interest to designers, builders, and manufacturers for many years. FPInnovations has been researching this topic since the 1970s and has worked with various researchers, practitioners, manufacturers, and building occupants, which has resulted in the creation of a large knowledge database. Those research results have been incorporated into the National Building Code of Canada and CSA O86-19 Engineering Design in Wood.

This best practices guide provides an overview of walking-induced vibrations associated with light-frame wood and mass timber floors based on typical North American construction. It presents the fundamental principles of wood floor vibration induced by normal walking, introduces design methods, and provides design examples. It also provides solutions for reducing vibration of poorly designed floors. Additionally, the principles and procedures of the finite element method design package for floor vibration performance are discussed, and recommendations are provided for performing system analyses to optimize building performance and cost-effectiveness.