Fitness club adjacent to a quiet corporate office - Prototypes

Abstract

There is a demand for fitness clubs in hotels, residential, and corporate buildings - sometimes adjacent to sensitive spaces. Activities involving weight drops and spinning bikes, among others, cause dynamic forces in the structure that propagate through the building's structure and radiate airborne sound. There is an effort by acousticians worldwide to establish a standardized method for measuring and rating the noise radiated by gyms into adjacent areas. This article describes the construction of a gym over a corporate office, occupying an area of 2100 m2 each. The gym's floor structure is a concrete and steel deck, and the office below has low sound levels. The goal of making gym activity inaudible in the office is undoable in practice. We tested several prototypes to arrive at a double insulation system with a floating slab with natural rubber mounts. A system of dynamic dampers was installed to reduce the movement of the floating slab with the dynamic excitation above it. The results of the prototype were auspicious. This paper presents the measurements of the natural frequency of the structure and the floating slab, the transmissibility of the system, and the differences in vibratory velocity from the floating floor to the structure.