Keywords: railway vibrations, transport vibrations, influence on people.

In a number of design and diagnostic situations the influence of vibrations on people inside buildings may be of decisive value in the assessment of the compliance with requirements concerning building usability. This paper presents a methodology of assessment of the influence of transport vibrations on people inside existing buildings and buildings to be designed, basing on the analysis of the assessment criteria included in standards. Relying on the the standards and a review of respective publications with consideration of the author's own experience in this field [1] the most useful assessment criteria were chosen and a methodology of such assessment was elaborated.

At present three assessment criteria are in use. In these criteria the following parameters of assessment are applied:

a)

Value of acceleration (velocity) of vibration corrected in the whole frequency range,

b)

Spectrum (frequency structure) of the effective value (RMS) of the acceleration (velocity) of vibration in 1/3 octave band of frequency, and

c)

Vibration dose.

To enable a more detailed description of the proposed methodology of assessment of vibration influence first of all the basic diagnostic and designing situations to which this methodology may be applied were characterised. The dependence on the state of the vibration source and object receiving the vibrations the following situations were identified:

a)

in the case of people residing in existing building two situations:

• the vibration source is operated (then a diagnosis of vibration influence is performed),
• the vibration source is designed (then a diagnosis with prognosis is determined).

b)

in the case of people who will reside in buildings to be designed two design situations were identified:

• the vibration source is operated (then the buildings designed knowing the parameters characterising its kinematic forcing),
• the vibration source is designed (then the building is designed for the forecasted vibration parameters).

For these situations the following procedures were identified:

• Procedures referring to diagnostic activities executed on existing buildings (two situations: the vibration source is existing and the vibration source is projected),
• Procedures referring to the assessment of people exposure to vibration in buildings to be designed (two situations: vibration source is existing and vibration source is to be designed),
• Procedures referring to situations connected with the creation of transport routes in the surroundings of the existing buildings and the buildings to be designed.

In these all diagnostic and design situations the influence of vibration on people in buildings should be taken under consideration.

1

J. Kawecki, K. Stypula, "Methods of determination of building model useful in evaluation of paraseismic vibration effect on people", Technical Journal, Cracow University of Technology, 2-B, 39-6, 2007. (in Polish)

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