Experimental and Analytical Study on the Vibration Performance of U-Shaped Steel-Concrete Composite Hollow Waffle Slab

The large-span floor system being lightweight with low frequency and low damping is prone to suffer severe vibration under human excitations. In this research, the vibration performance of an innovative large-span U-shaped steel-concrete composite hollow waffle (CHW) slab was studied based on field testing and theoretical analysis. First, the modal properties of CHW slab including mode shapes, frequencies, and damping ratio were captured by on-site tests and validated by the finite element method, indicating the CHW slab is a low-frequency floor system with a low damping ratio. Second, the vibration responses of CHW slab under heel-drop and jumping excitations were studied considering the impacts of spatial position, tester number, and activity types. Third, the CHW slab shows excellent vibration serviceability proved by the frequency, accelerations, and human perceptions threshold with the current codes. Meanwhile, the paper gives appropriate threshold values for the CHW slab under impulsive excitation. Finally, the natural frequency formula for the CHW slab derived by the Rayleigh-Ritz energy method agrees well with the measurements.