CALM Sim
Understand floor vibration. Design the solution.
CALM® Sim helps structural and acoustics engineers assess floor vibration serviceability and design CALMFLOOR active vibration control schemes.
Turn modal data from your finite element model into clear predictions of floor response under pedestrian and machinery loads. Assess performance using international design guides, identify where vibration matters, and simulate the improvement achievable with CALMFLOOR.
From your FE model to a vibration assessment – and a scheme we can quote for and supply.
Customer challenges.
Answer the questions that drive your design
A floor’s natural frequencies are only the starting point. You need to understand how it responds, whether that response is acceptable, and what to do if it is not.
Move quickly from modal data to useful results.
Bring your FE outputs into a guided analysis workflow, with design-guide load models and response metrics in one place.
Find the areas that need attention.
See where responses are highest and how much floor area meets your chosen criteria. Investigate individual rooms, circulation routes and sensitive zones.
Evaluate a practical vibration-control option.
Test CALMFLOOR layouts and controller settings, then compare predicted performance with and without active control.
Make the results easier to explain.
Use heatmaps, response plots and floor-area comparisons to support discussions with clients and the wider design team.
Starting from your model.
Build on the FE analysis you already have CALM Sim uses floor geometry, natural frequencies, mode shapes and modal masses from your FE analysis, together with your assumed damping ratios, to calculate vibration response.
Import → Inspect → Analyse → Compare
- Bring in your model.
Import supported exports from Oasys GSA, ANSYS, SAP2000 and ETABS, or use CALM Sim’s CSV templates for other sources. - Review the dynamics.
Visualise mode shapes, inspect modal properties and adjust damping assumptions for individual modes or the full model. - Focus the assessment.
Organise floor levels and zones, define the floor mesh and select excitation and response locations.
Built-in example data lets you explore the complete workflow before importing your first project
Assess the loads and criteria that matter to your project.
International design-guide methods
Work with CCIP-016, SCI P354, AISC DG11, CSTR43
Appendix G and AIJ VIB18. Available methods include low-frequency resonant and high-frequency transient analyses, with activities and options matched to the selected guide.
Pedestrian and group loading
Assess walking, running, stair use and supported rhythmic group activities. Define excitation at response locations, investigate transfer from corridors to sensitive areas, or apply distributed loads across an activity zone. For more detailed walking studies, use time-domain analysis with synthetic or measured walking-force signals and probabilistic pacing.
Machinery vibration
Define sinusoidal forces and assess steady operation in the frequency domain. Explore run-up, run-down and speed variation through time-domain simulations.
Results for comfort and sensitive uses
Calculate response factors, peak and RMS acceleration, velocity and displacement, plus equivalent sinusoidal peak acceleration. Compare one-third-octave-band velocity spectra with VC and ISO reference curves. Use heatmaps to locate critical areas, floor-area plots to quantify their extent, and time histories and frequency response functions to investigate the underlying behaviour.
Design the scheme.
See the predicted difference.
CALM Sim brings CALMFLOOR active mass damper design into the same floor model and assessment workflow.
- Position the units.
Place units directly on the model, by coordinates or at mode antinodes. Overlay mode shapes and response results to inform the layout. - Tune and check the system.
Adjust controller gains and filters, review individual-unit margins and assess the stability of the coupled multi-unit system - Check the demands on the hardware.
Review predicted actuator force and stroke against unit capacity, with warnings for excessive demand or controller gain. - Compare the outcome.
Run the same loading case with and without CALMFLOOR. Compare response maps, affected floor area, spectra and time histories to evaluate the proposed scheme.
Reporting and next steps…
From engineering assessment to a CALMFLOOR quotation. Export mode shapes, layouts, heatmaps and charts for your engineering reports. Save your model, analysis settings, CALMFLOOR configuration and results in a single project file for review and further development.
When you have a proposed scheme, share it with our team. We can review its applicability and practical installation requirements, then provide a quotation for supply.
- Starting a new assessment?
Request access to CALM Sim. - Already have a floor model?
Send it to us for review. - Ready with a scheme?
Request a CALMFLOOR quotation.
Next steps…
For more information about CALMFLOOR please contact the team today.
