Vibration control in a repurposed building
Following a conversion from office space to a life science laboratory, we set out to evidence the im ...
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A new hospital that was to be built in south-west England was the subject of a robust Net Zero agenda set by the project’s designers and investors. The building comprised a three-level concrete frame with floors spanning 8.4m.
Stringent vibration serviceability requirements that were pertinent to floors required a 400mm thick, pre-cast concrete plank and concrete topping above them. The client wanted to ensure that vibration performance requirements were adequately fulfilled while also seeking methods to minimise significant embodied carbon.
Hospitals typically require heavy, deep and high-frequency floors to meet dynamics requirements to accommodate operation rooms and scanner areas. This is merely a serviceability requirement rather than for strength, which is a design against collapse.
In this instance, the hospital’s designers carried out a detailed study aimed at reducing the embodied carbon of a total floor area in approximately 4500m2. This meant the slab thickness of the three levels had to be 300mm to meet the embodied carbon target. However, footfall analysis indicated the 300mm floor had response factors (R) higher than 2 at critical locations (see Figure 1 above).
The CALM®FLOOR active mass damper (AMD) solution, with its hugely effective vibration mitigation and low-carbon savings, proved to be able to deliver the 300mm deep floor with satisfactory vibration performance (see Figure 3 below). This highlights how high-spec floors for sensitive areas such as hospital floors can be built with massive carbon savings using CALMFLOOR units.
CALMFLOOR technology showed it would pave the way as a first-of-its-kind sustainable solution to significantly reduce floor weight and carbon footprint while meeting vibration performance. This seamless shift in design and material savings delivers remarkable improvements not only in vibration performance, but also in the potential for substantial carbon reductions.
Figure 3 below illustrates the footfall analysis results following the adoption of seven strategic positions for the CALMFLOOR units that would deliver vibration control. This innovative technology facilitated an impressive reduction in embodied carbon and vibration responses.
We revealed considerable potential for achieving substantial reductions, thereby generating added savings in cost and embodied carbon. CALMFLOOR would represent a game-changing, elegant floor vibration solution that would meet vibration performance without any additional, unnecessary materials.
CALMFLOOR active damper technology provided a versatile, world-class floor vibration control solution for our customer. This patented AMD technology offered an economically viable and environmentally sustainable approach that enabled the building designer to create longer, leaner, lighter floors.
This project showcases CALMFLOOR’s capabilities to mitigate problematic floor vibrations perfectly. The benefits achieved extend beyond merely reducing vibration responses, promising substantial cost savings and signification reductions in embodied carbon in line with the project’s pre-determined Net Zero parameters.
CALMFLOOR vibration control fulfilled the brief for designers of this new hospital building project that had set far-reaching Net Zero targets. We showed how CALMFLOOR active vibration control units would mitigate perceived floor vibration issues and deliver substantial cost and carbon savings in accordance with Net Zero parameters.