Vibrations propagating through the soil into the building can not only be harmful to the building structure or cause its accelerated wear, but can also effect on the vibrational comfort in the rooms. They can also be annoying for residents and building users, and in extreme cases can lead to sleep disorders, headaches and neurotic conditions. Especially vibrations from the low frequency range from 5 to 25 Hz are undesirable, because there are resonance frequencies of human internal organs in this frequency range. The human perception of vibrations in buildings, despite many researches made in the past, despite standards and requirements in this area, is still a topic not fully understood mainly due to the subjective nature of the perception of vibrations by various people. It is widely known that the type of transport vibration source has an impact on human perception. Vibrations generated by above-ground sources are more felt on the upper floors as opposed to vibrations generated from the underground. In this paper three types of transport vibrations are analyzed on one chosen building located in Warsaw. Human perception of vibration is evaluated according to two methods: root mean squared (RMS) and vibration dose value (VDV)

Alicja Kowalska-Koczwara

English

Vibroengineering PROCEDIA

 88 VIBROENGINEERING PROCEDIA. SEPTEMBER 2019, VOLUME 27  
Impact of selected sources of transport vibrations on the 
perception of vibrations by people in buildings 
Alicja Kowalska-Koczwara 
Cracow University of Technology, Krakow, Poland 
E-mail: akowalska@pk.edu.pl 
Received 5 September 2019; accepted 12 September 2019 
DOI https://doi.org/10.21595/vp.2019.20997 
Copyright © 2019 Alicja Kowalska-Koczwara. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 
Abstract. Vibrations propagating through the soil into the building can not only be harmful to the 
building structure or cause its accelerated wear, but can also effect on the vibrational comfort in 
the rooms. They can also be annoying for residents and building users, and in extreme cases can 
lead to sleep disorders, headaches and neurotic conditions. Especially vibrations from the low 
frequency range from 5 to 25 Hz are undesirable, because there are resonance frequencies of 
human internal organs in this frequency range. The human perception of vibrations in buildings, 
despite many researches made in the past, despite standards and requirements in this area, is still 
a topic not fully understood mainly due to the subjective nature of the perception of vibrations by 
various people. It is widely known that the type of transport vibration source has an impact on 
human perception. Vibrations generated by above-ground sources are more felt on the upper floors 
as opposed to vibrations generated from the underground. In this paper three types of transport 
vibrations are analyzed on one chosen building located in Warsaw. Human perception of vibration 
is evaluated according to two methods: root mean squared (RMS) and vibration dose value (VDV). 
Keywords: in-situ measurement, RMS, VDV, human perception of vibration, transport vibration, 
vibrational comfort. 
1. Introduction 
The aim of this paper is to analyzed the two methods of evaluation of human perception of 
vibrations in terms of issue related to various sources of transport that may affect the result of this 
assessment. The paper considers vibrations from external paraseismic sources. The vibrations 
generated by machines in rooms [1], which generate continuous vibrations, but with a higher 
frequency range, and human induced vibrations [1-3], which are more important in slender 
structures - a type of footbridge - were not analyzed. Transport vibrations were selected because 
of their continuous nature and relatively low frequency range. There are many analysis available 
in literature which are focused on influence of transport vibrations on human perception. Most of 
them analyzed only one source of vibration. There are many investigations on railway induced 
vibration and its annoyance [4-7]. Sometimes when the building is localized close to the busy road, 
the vibration coming from heavy trucks are analyzed [8-10]. In the cities of shallow underground 
like Warsaw these kind of vibrations are also analyzed [11]. There are some research which 
investigate more than one source of vibration [9, 10], but still the detailed result are not available. 
This paper summarizes the results of the assessment of the influence of vibrations on people in 
buildings. The vibrations come from different transport sources: from vehicles on roadways 
(mostly buses and heavy trucks) and from railways (trams, metro trains). The research is made on 
chosen building which is subjected to three sources of vibration. The results are presented and 
compared. The novelty of this manuscript is the comparison of the influences coming from three 
different sources of transport vibrations measured on the same building. 
2. Description of analyzed building] 
The analyzed building is localized in Warsaw at the Zamoyskiego St. It is a five-storey 
building built in traditional brick technology (Fig. 1). The building was built before World War II. 
IMPACT OF SELECTED SOURCES OF TRANSPORT VIBRATIONS ON THE PERCEPTION OF VIBRATIONS BY PEOPLE IN BUILDINGS.  
ALICJA KOWALSKA-KOCZWARA 
 ISSN PRINT 2345-0533, ISSN ONLINE 2538-8479, KAUNAS, LITHUANIA 89 
Floors were made as Klein type. It is located 9 m from the edge of the road and about 20 m from 
the tram line (distance measured from the nearest rail head) and located directly above the metro 
tunnel. 
 
Fig. 1. View of the eastern facade of the building 
The measuring point was located on the fourth floor, in the living room located from the side 
of the road and rail, in accordance with the standards [12, 13] was located in the geometrical center 
of the floor (Fig. 2). Accelerations were measured in three orthogonal directions ሺ𝑋, 𝑌, 𝑍ሻ. 
 
Fig. 2. The location of the vibration pickup measuring point 
As a result of dynamic background measurements, 12 events were recorded from: the tram line 
(8 events), the road (4 events) and from metro trains (11 events). In total, 23 events were analyzed 
according to RMS and VDV procedure.  
Table 1. Thresholds for VDV values 
Room destination Low probability of 
adverse comments 
Adverse comments 
possible 
Adverse comments 
probable 
Residential buildings – 16 h day 0.2-0.4 0.4-0.8 0.8-1.6 
Residential buildings – 8 h night 0.1-0.2 0.2-0.4 0.4-0.8 
Office buildings – 16 h day 0.4-0.8 0.8-1.6 1.6-3.2 
Workshops – 16 h day 0.8-1.6 1.6-3.2 3.2-6.4 
IMPACT OF SELECTED SOURCES OF TRANSPORT VIBRATIONS ON THE PERCEPTION OF VIBRATIONS BY PEOPLE IN BUILDINGS.  
ALICJA KOWALSKA-KOCZWARA 
90 VIBROENGINEERING PROCEDIA. SEPTEMBER 2019, VOLUME 27  
3. RMS results 
The RMS procedure was made according to Polish requirements [12]. It is worth noting that 
duration of vibration in [12] are strictly defined. The duration of vibration determines the range in 
which the value of the amplitude of the vibration acceleration does not fall below 0.2 the value of 
the maximum amplitude in the recorded signal. That is why the RMS procedure acc. [12] is more 
restrictive than those from ISO standard [13] in which duration of vibrations is defined as fellows: 
the recorded signal should be sufficient to ensure rational statistical accuracy. This definition is 
very broad and imprecise. From the 23 recorded dynamical events, five exceeded the threshold of 
perception of vibrations by people in buildings. Three exceedances of the perception threshold 
occurred for metro trains, which accounts for approx. 27 % of all metro trains passings which were 
registered. Two exceedances of the perception threshold from the roads, which in this case 
constitutes 50 % of all recorded signals from the road. In the case of trams passing there was no 
exceedance of the vibration perception threshold. 
The example of RMS analysis in the 1/3 octave bands is shown in Fig. 3. 
 
Fig. 3. RMS analysis of recorded signal from heavy truck passing 
To make results form RMS method more visible the WODL coefficient was used: 
𝑊𝑂𝐷𝐿 ൌ 𝑚𝑎𝑥 ൬𝑎ோெௌ𝑎௭ ൰, (1)
where: 𝑎ோெௌ  the acceleration RMS value, 𝑎௓  the acceleration RMS value equivalent to the 
threshold for the human perception of vibration in 𝑍 direction. 
4. VDV results 
The same events as those analyzed by RMS were subjected to VDV analysis. The duration of 
the event, which varied from 11 to 19 s, was taken into account. The results of the VDV analysis 
together with the summary of WODL coefficients calculated during the RMS analysis are given 
in Table 2. 
Grey marked values according to the Polish standard [12] exceed the values corresponding to 
the threshold of human vibration perception in buildings (WODL > 1.0) or correspond to the low 
probability of complaints from residents on a daily exposure (VDV > 0.2). 
IMPACT OF SELECTED SOURCES OF TRANSPORT VIBRATIONS ON THE PERCEPTION OF VIBRATIONS BY PEOPLE IN BUILDINGS.  
ALICJA KOWALSKA-KOCZWARA 
 ISSN PRINT 2345-0533, ISSN ONLINE 2538-8479, KAUNAS, LITHUANIA 91 
In order to compare the results obtained with the RMS method and the VDV method, the 
following assumptions were made: 
– low probability of complaints is compared with exceedance the threshold of human vibration 
perception, 
– the possible occurrence of complaints is compared to the vibrational comfort level. 
Table 2. VDV values in individual events and maximum WODL values in events 
No. Vehicle type Duration of vibration [s] VDV [m/s1,75] WODL/f [–/Hz] 
1 Tram 19 0,050 0,48/12,5 
2 Tram 11 0,049 0,49/12,5 
3 Bus 11 0,094 1,01/12,5 
4 Tram 18 0,088 0,86/12,5 
5 Heavy truck 12 0,161 1,72/12,5 
6 Bus 12 0,065 0,75/12,5 
7 Tram 12 0,050 0,52/12,5 
8 Bus 12 0,043 0,58/12,5 
9 Tram 14 0,073 0,49/12,5 
10 Tram 12 0,049 0,53/12,5 
11 Tram 12 0,041 0,42/12,5 
12 Tram 12 0,070 0,77/12,5 
13 Metro train 18 0,171 0,83/40 
14 Metro train 18 0,142 0,70/40 
15 Metro train 18 0,214 1,28/40 
16 Metro train 17 0,144 0,71/40 
17 Metro train 16 0,119 0,57/40 
18 Metro train 18 0,152 0,71/40 
19 Metro train 18 0,166 0,94/40 
20 Metro train 18 0,162 1,03/40 
21 Metro train 16 0,322 1,18/40 
22 Metro train 18 0,146 0,90/40 
23 Metro train 18 0,198 0,82/40 
5. Conclusions 
Based on the RMS analysis, it can be stated that 22 % of events exceeded the values 
corresponding to the thresholds of human vibration perception in buildings. 
Based on the VDV study, a few events were found in which residents' complaints were unlikely 
to occur. These are two events related to metro trains. The vibrations generated by tram passing 
are imperceptible to people. Based on the results of the assessment made using the VDV method, 
it can be concluded that 18 % of events caused by metro result in a low probability of complaints. 
VDV method according to ISO standard is more sensitive for peaks that can occur in the 
recorded signal. Transport vibrations are more stable vibrations with the low value of the crest 
factor. That is why for the transport vibrations more proper method for evaluation of human 
perception of vibration will be RMS method. 
References 
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IMPACT OF SELECTED SOURCES OF TRANSPORT VIBRATIONS ON THE PERCEPTION OF VIBRATIONS BY PEOPLE IN BUILDINGS.  
ALICJA KOWALSKA-KOCZWARA 
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Impact of selected sources of transport vibrations on the perception of vibrations by people in buildings

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Impact of selected sources of transport vibrations on the perception of vibrations by people in buildings

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