Dynamic response of dancing floor: An example of designing RC floor of a wedding hall

Abstract

Building new wedding halls has been flourishing as one of the catching investments in Sudan in recent years. These halls typically require large open spaces with no permeant partitions or furniture that reduces the superimposed dead load considerably. This paper presents an example of designing a reinforced concrete wedding hall floor, using two flooring systems, namely, flat slab and two way solid slab considering dancing induced dynamic load. Firstly an initial sizing based on only dead and live load was carried. The dynamic response was assessed following three methods: 1) the fundamental frequency limit; 2) equivalent static load; and 3) the acceleration limit. The results of the dynamic assessment has shown that a little to no-design alteration has to be made in the concrete flooring systems to satisfy safety. However, problems of vibration perception and comfort may require further structural adjustment to meet the acceptable level of vibration in the project specification based on the anticipating floor usage.

Keywords

• dancing loads
• floor vibration
• dynamic analysis
• dynamic response