INCE/J Vibration Measurement Manual for Buildings—Part 2: On the assessment based on the vibration

This paper discusses the assessment of building vibration in terms of human responses based on vibration measurements specified by the Vibration Measurement Manual for Buildings developed by the Technical Subcommittee on Environmental Vibration Evaluation of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of Japan. As stated in some of the current international and national standards, building vibration could cause adverse comments from occupants when the vibration magnitude is in excess of human perception only slightly. For the assessment of building vibration based on the measurement manual, therefore, a range of human vibration perception threshold was derived from the previous studies that determined the perception thresholds in experiment involving human subjects. The vibration perception threshold range implies a range of vibration magnitude for different frequencies that may correspond to lowest vibration magnitudes people with different sensitivities to vibration can detect. The vibration magnitude within or in excess of the perception range may be assessed as a magnitude that can be perceived by occupant at different possibilities. The assessment with the vibration perception threshold range does not necessarily show if the building vibration to be assessed has a magnitude high enough to cause adverse comment.