Introduction to vibration in buildings Handout 4

Guidance for modelling footfall-induced vibration in composite floors using GSA

1. Advanced features. In order to carry out footfall analysis in GSA, ensure that appropriate
advanced features are enabled. Go to Tools Preferences and click on the Advanced features
tab. The 2D element analysis, Modal dynamic analysis and Footfall induced vibration analysis
options must be selected.

2. Element types. Where possible, use parabolic (Quad8 and Tri6) elements for a 2D mesh. If linear
(Quad4 and Tri3) elements are used, ensure they have MITC, and not Mindlin, formulation. The
formulation can be set in the 2D Element Analysis tab of the Advanced Solver Settings on the last
screen of the Analysis Wizard. Linear elements will result in a smaller model size.

3. Mesh planning. If you take time to plan your mesh first, you will save yourself troubles later.

4. Mesh quality. Try to limit the aspect ratio of elements to 1:3. The internal element angles should
also be limited to >45 degrees and <135 degrees where possible.

5. Mesh building. Generating 2D element meshes is covered in the GSA help file with that name.
However, for areas that can be broken down into rectangular areas, a quick way to build 2D
element meshes is to add, for each rectangle, large Quad4 elements that are subdivided to get the
mesh density required. You can change Quad4/Tri3 elements to Quad8/Tri6 elements by
selecting all the 2D elements and using the Modify toolbar in GSA to change the 2D element type
to parabolic. The beam elements must also be subdivided to get mesh compatibility. 2D elements
with property n can be viewed by selecting PAn; beam elements with property n can be viewed
by selecting PBn. If there are dissimilar mesh densities either side of an interface, the two meshes
can be connected by a Tied interface, found under Constraints in the Gateway.

6. Mesh density. Try and use a mesh density of at least 8 elements along a beams length and about
3-4 elements between secondary beams in a floor bay. In general there should be at least 4
elements for each half sine wave of mode shape, including those for higher modes. How do you
know if your mesh is fine enough? If you do a natural frequency analysis, you need enough
nodes to define the mode shape correctly. If in doubt, subdivide the mesh by 2 and re-run.
Compare the natural frequencies and modal masses of the two models.

7. Composite Floors. There are several ways to model a composite floor. The easiest way is to
model the slab with 2D elements explicitly and the beams with offset beam elements. This will
result in axial forces in the slabs and beams, which is why flat shell elements must be used. Make
sure your beam mesh is compatible with your 2D element mesh. A quick way to create beam
elements which are compatible with the 2D element mesh is to select a line of nodes and use the
Add string of 1D elements command, found under Sculpt 1D element operations.

8. Element offsets. Element offsets are important when modelling a composite floorplate. The
beams can be offset downwards, or the slab can be offset upwards, or there can be a combination
of the two. What is important is that the total offset equals:
(Height of slab NA above steel beam + depth of centroid below top of beam)
The height of the slab neutral axis above the steel beam (the centroid of the decking and
uncracked concrete) is one of the parameters determined by the Footfall vibration spreadsheet
(see section 14 below).

If the level of the top of the beams is defined as a Grid plane, an easy way to model the beam
offsets is to Apply offsets. Having selected the beams, go to Tools Manipulate model Apply
offsets. Select Offset beams downwards to align top surfaces, Align with grid planes and OK. If
the slab is not at the level of its NA, the slab elements must be selected and the necessary offset
applied using Modify selected elements Offsets, select all eight nodes and enter the appropriate
offset under z. Note that the top of the beams will not generally be flush with the bottom of the
slab in the model, because the profiled decking and slab are modelled as an equivalent
rectangular section.

9. Concrete properties. The following concrete properties should be used when modelling dynamic
effects:
Normal weight concrete: Youngs Modulus: 38GPa
Density: 2400kg/m
3

Lightweight concrete: Youngs Modulus: 22GPa
Density: 1800 kg/m
3


In order to create this user-defined material:
Go to Properties Materials User defined in the gateway.
Click the top left cell in the table and click the Wizard button.
Select Concrete long term from the Copy standard material dropdown menu.
Name the material something such as Concrete dynamic.
After clicking Next, change the Elastic modulus and Density to the values above.

10. Web openings. If the steel beams have web openings, to compensate for the reduction in mass, a
reduced web thickness should be specified in the element properties. The web thickness should
be calculated such that the volume of steel in the web of the equivalent plain section is the same
as that in the web of the cellular section. A stiffness correction should also be applied if the steel
beams have web openings. In the absence of better information, the K
z
section modifier should be
reduced to about 25% of the ratio of the solid web area (the web height being defined as the total
section depth minus the flange thicknesses for a welded section) to the total section area.

11. 2D element properties. Make sure you use Shell elements, which can be defined in the 2D
element properties area of GSA. Shell elements are formulated to take in-plane stresses as well as
bending stresses, while Flat plate elements can only take bending stresses: this is very important
for composite floors.

12. Concrete Cracking. The small amplitude of dynamic strains means that usually, where crack
widths are controlled, concrete cracking will have little impact on dynamic axial and bending
stiffnesses. Even where the concrete is cracked, the stiffness between cracks will approach the
uncracked value, resulting in only a small overall reduction. An example of a situation where
stiffness should be reduced is a composite slab, propped during construction, and reinforced with
nominal mesh, rather than designed reinforcement. On depropping and further loading, there will
be uncontrolled cracking over the supports, for which a reduced bending stiffness (of, say, 70%
of the uncracked value) should be used.

13. Mass. It is extremely important that the mass of the floor is not overestimated. Only mass that is
going to be on the floor should be included in the natural frequency analysis. Excess mass may
result in unconservative answers. As a guide, no more than 10% of live load should be included
as additional mass. Typically, the non-structural mass for an office floor can be taken as
100kg/m
2
. Do NOT apply the full live load as added mass. For stairs and bridges, NO live load
should be added.

There are four ways to add non-structural mass in GSA. The easiest way is to add Additional
mass in the 2D element properties table or the 2D property wizard. Alternatively, the
Mass/weight modifier in the same table can be adjusted; otherwise you can add mass elements, or
you can specify a load case to be converted to mass when setting up the natural frequency
analysis. To check if this has been done, scan the dynamic details in the output view where it
shows any load cases added as mass. Gravity, thermal and prestress loads are NOT converted to
masses, even when included in a load case with externally applied loads that are converted to
masses.

14. Trapezoidal decking. To model trapezoidal decking, appropriate properties must be calculated for
the 2D elements. However, until GSA has orthogonal elements, you must decide in which
direction the deckings properties are more important. If the span direction properties are
dominant, a convenient way to obtain properties is to use the Footfall vibration spreadsheet from
the SSN site (Tools Spreadsheets General); the spreadsheet should be saved locally on
your machine. Once saved and opened, open the Response worksheet and click the Composite
beam floor radio button. Click on the Composite Beam Floor tab, which will now have appeared.
After opening this worksheet, enter the overall slab depth, enter the type of decking and select
normal weight or lightweight concrete. Make a note of the following four numbers from the
Decking table:
Axial factor
Bending factor
Mass factor
Height of slab neutral axis above steel beam (centroid of decking and uncracked concrete).

From these numbers, the Thickness, Bending, In-plane and Mass/weight thickness modifiers can
be calculated and entered into the 2D element properties table:
Thickness is the overall slab depth
Bending is the spreadsheets Bending factor
In-plane is the spreadsheets Axial factor
Mass/weight is the spreadsheets Mass factor.

It is also possible to specify Additional mass resulting from up to 10% of imposed load (kg/m)
= up to 0.1 imposed load (kPa)
g
1000
(optional)

These section properties will not be constant for the whole slab if there are changes in the type of
decking, slab thickness, superimposed dead or imposed loads etc. If this is the case, different 2D
element properties should be assigned to different 2D elements.

15. Beam Connections. Normally, for strength or serviceability design, structural engineers assume
pinned end connections. For dynamics, however, assume all connections are fixed unless they
truly are pins. This is because pin connections do, in practice, provide a small moment
connection, which is significant when considering small dynamic rotations. The same applies
around concrete core walls.

16. Faade Supports. Similarly, a faade can usually be taken as offering vertical support to a floor
because the small dynamic displacements do not overcome friction.

17. Columns. The bending stiffnesses of columns help increase the natural frequency of a floor and
reduce the modal mass, so it is not clear whether their contribution is of benefit or not. Rather
than providing pin supports at column positions, the columns above and below the floor should
be modelled.

18. Over Restraining. If modelling a floor plate using 2D elements and offset beams, make sure that
the slab edges are not fully restrained against moving laterally (ie pinned). This will result in the
slab attracting membrane forces and will give a higher natural frequency than the floor actually
has.

19. Symmetry. If you use symmetry in your model the modal mass will be incorrect. You will not get
antisymmetric modes either. It is strongly recommended to use a full model.

20. Modal dynamic analysis. A Modal dynamic analysis must be carried out before a footfall analysis
can be run. You should determine all modes with frequencies up to the greater of 15Hz and twice
the natural frequency of the lowest mode that is active in the area being considered. As a starting
point, try around 40 modes.

21. Lumped mass or consistent mass matrix. Providing you have enough nodes the lumped mass
option in the analysis wizard will give a good result with far less computational effort. Mass will
be lumped at the nodes and the mass matrix for each element will be diagonal. The consistent
mass matrix formulation, which calculates the mass from the element shape functions, will result
in a slightly better mass distribution but involves far more computations to get the mass matrix,
which will be fully populated and based on the same element shape functions as used to derive
the element stiffness matrix.

22. Footfall analysis. Following a modal analysis, the Footfall analysis can be run. The excitation
method should be set to Full excitation and the Use search technique box selected. The damping
ratio depends on the structure being analysed. For an open-plan, lightly furnished office, the
damping ratio may be lower than 2% of critical damping. For a fully partitioned, heavily
furnished office, the damping ratio may be up to 4.5%. For a composite floor with no furniture,
partitions or raised floors (eg: airport terminal) damping may be as low as 1.0% of critical
damping. The response factor is quite sensitive to the damping ratio, and care should be taken not
to select too high a level of damping. The default value of 3% should be used with caution, as it
is likely to result in a non-conservative design for most offices. The default Number of footfalls
of 100 is likely to be a conservative starting point for an office floor plate. After running the
footfall analysis, the initial results can be analysed and a more appropriate number of footfalls
chosen. The default values for the other options should be acceptable.

23. Results. After running the Footfall analysis, look at the results by selecting your footfall analysis
case, clicking on the Contour settings button and selecting Nodal results (or Nodal results on
elements if you want the results interpolated along elements) Footfall induced vibration
summary Overall maximum response factor.

24. Refining number of footfalls. In order to more accurately determine the correct number of
footfalls to input into the analysis, the areas with peak response factor should be investigated. For
each area, the following method should be employed:
Find the node number of the peak node.
Go to View New chart view Footfall analysis and select the Participation factor v.
modes: resonant chart from the Footfall induced vibration - resonant analysis group.
Enter the number of the peak node into both the Response node and Excitation node boxes
and click on OK.
This chart shows which mode or modes make a significant contribution to this resonance.
Go back to the footfall analysis chart options and, this time, select the Response factor v.
walking frequency chart from the resonant analysis group, again entering the peak node
number in both boxes.
Consider the peak or peaks of this graph. For each peak, multiply the harmonic number by
the walking frequency. This should give approximately the same resulting frequency for
each peak. Check that this corresponds to the frequency of the mode identified from the
previous chart.
Examine the deflected shape of this mode at the area in question. Measure the dimensions
of the deflected zone. Take the largest dimension and divide it by the length of a pace, say
0.7m. This gives the maximum number of footfalls that could excite this area.

Having determined the appropriate number of footfalls for each area of peak response, different
footfall analyses should be run with the different numbers of footfalls. The results from an
analysis run with a particular number of footfalls only apply to the region(s) for which that
number of footfalls is appropriate. It is, therefore, not possible to produce a single output in GSA
that gives a completely accurate representation of the response factor over the whole slab without
generating user modules, combining them in a spreadsheet and creating a new user module. One
could, however, take the highest number of footfalls and produce a single output which is
accurate over the area for which that number of footfalls was calculated and conservative over
the rest of the slab.

June 2012