Floor vibration testing in hospital operating rooms

Abstract

Operating rooms in several hospitals have been studied for their in-situ floor vibration properties. The motivations ranged from identifying the cause of unstable images observed in a surgical microscope to determining whether a portion of a long span floor in a hospital parking garage could be adapted for a future surgical center. As part of these studies, several types of floor excitation techniques were employed including a vibration exciter, a “heeldrop,” and a human walker. The input magnitudes from the first two of these excitation sources can be measured at a given location using a calibrated force plate. The human walker, however, is a “wild card” source since the location of the footfall is constantly changing; moreover, the nature of the applied force pulse is unknown under field conditions. Thus, one cannot easily quantify the dynamic force of the test signal that is most germane to the assessment of floor vibration in the field. The paper will review the literature governing floor vibration limits in sensitive buildings and summarize the utility of information obtained by various floor testing protocols.