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Topic

Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Human-Induced Vibration Performance in Mass Timber Office Buildings

Department of Civil Engineering

Date & location

• Thursday, January 30, 2025
• 2:00 P.M.
• Virtual Defence

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Sardar Malek, Department of Civil Engineering (Supervisor)

• Dr. Min Sun, Department of Civil Engineering, Uvic (Member)

• Dr. Keith Crews, Department of Civil Engineering, UVic (Outside Member) 

External Examiner

• Dr. Haoyu Huang, Department of Civil Engineering, Newcastle University 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Reuven Gordon, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UVic 

Abstract

Timber floors are susceptible to vibration due to their low mass and bending stiffness. Utilizing mass timber products in long-span scenarios, such as in office buildings, makes vibration an important design driver for structural engineers. The performance of long-span office floors is studied both experimentally and numerically in this thesis. First, a testing campaign conducted on two mass timber office buildings is presented. The dynamic characteristics of the floors were initially measured using hammer and heel drop tests. A series of human walking tests were also performed to assess the impact of various parameters, such as walking paths, pace rates, and walker weights, on the floor’s vibration behavior. To better understand and explain the findings in the experimental campaign, a numerical framework has been developed as a part of this research. The developed framework has been used to numerically simulate the response of a timber-concrete composite floor under human walking forces at a selected bay. The developed framework captures floor’s fundamental frequency and floor acceleration due to walking. The accuracy of the modelling framework is examined by comparing the modelling predictions with test data. It is demonstrated how the developed framework could be used as a tool to assess the impact of various boundary/connection conditions and material input parameters suggested in various design guides. In particular, the effect of parameters such as the dynamic modulus of concrete, shear stiffness of the glulam beam-to-CLT and CLT-to-concrete connectors, and the stiffness of the beam-to-beam connections (whether fixed or pinned) are investigated quantitatively. The study highlights the importance of including columns, adjacent bays, and connections between glulam beams, CLT, and concrete in the model. It is found that fixed beam-to-beam connections inaccurately predicted acceleration and overestimated stiffness and frequency, recommending pinned connections for mass timber composite floors. Additionally, the increase in stiffness from fixed connections could not be offset by reducing the stiffness of glulam beam-to-CLT and CLT-to-concrete connections. The findings from this study offer valuable insights into performance of mass timber composite floors and efficient modelling of floor vibration with complex boundary condition and connections used in practice.