Chapter 19 Addressing Parking Garage Vibrations for the Design of Research and Healthcare Facilities Brad Pridham, Nick Walters, Luke Nelson, and Brian Roeder Abstract The urban setting of many research and healthcare facilities often results in challenging stacking arrangements that require unique solutions to vibration control issues. A condition for which design guidance is limited is the multi-level parking garage that stacks above or below vibration-critical spaces. This situation is becoming increasingly common in urban areas where the cost of land imposes small building footprints, and owners must build ‘up’ rather than ‘out’. Design solutions often include appropriate separation between vibration-critical spaces and parking areas and/or de-tuning of stacked floor structures to limit the efficiency of vibration transmission. However, these solutions are not universally applicable and in some cases, alternative approaches to vibration control must be developed. In this paper we discuss approaches to addressing vibrations from parking garages during the design of vibration-sensitive facilities. A case study is presented involving a Medical Office Building that features multi-level parking stacked above an ambulatory surgical clinic located on the ground floor. Concerns included noise and vibration disturbance to patients and staff, as well as potential disruptions to overhead equipment in Operating Rooms (ORs). Numerical reviews early in design were complemented with measurements of vehicle vibrations during construction. The results from the measurements and modeling were used for the development of secondary structural support systems to limit vibration disturbances in the surgical clinic. Keywords Vehicle-induced vibration • Floor vibration • Parking garage • Operating rooms 19.1 Introduction The densification of urban education and healthcare campuses is driving the development of taller buildings housing stateof-the-art technologies and treatments to service growing enrollments and an aging population. One result of ‘building up’ is the challenge of co-location of traditionally incompatible spaces from a noise and vibration perspective. Examples include mid-level mechanical floors above or below acoustically-sensitive areas; vibration-sensitive equipment (e.g., MRIs, electron microscopes) above ambulance or loading bays; and parking garages sharing structure with noise and vibration sensitive spaces. Each of these situations requires a careful assessment of building systems for development of suitable noise and vibration controls. This paper address approaches to addressing vibrations from parking garages that share structural systems with noise and vibration sensitive spaces. Despite being a common condition in many mid-to-high rise research and healthcare facilities, the topic has received limited attention in technical publications. References on the topic generally focus on human and industrial occupancies, for which noise disturbance and tactile perception by occupants are the primary concerns [1, 2]. The problem of parking garage vibrations in sensitive occupancies is mentioned in design guides and standards; however, the reader is typically deferred to ‘more detailed analysis’, without specific direction on means and methods for control [3, 4]. In this contribution we provide discussion on the parking garage vibration issue together with a practical example of how it may be addressed in design and construction. B. Pridham ( ) • N. Walters Novus Environmental Inc., 150 Research Lane, Suite 105, Guelph, ON, N1G4T2, Canada e-mail: bradp@novusenv.com L. Nelson Datum Engineers, 5929 Balcones Drive # 100, Austin, TX, 78731, USA B. Roeder Page Southerland Page, Inc., 400 W. Cesar Chavez Street Suite 500, Austin, TX, 78701, USA © The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc. 2017 J. Caicedo, S. Pakzad (eds.), Dynamics of Civil Structures, Volume 2, Conference Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Mechanics Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-54777-0_19 147
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