Early assessment of the vibroacoustic performance of large lightweight buildings

As part of the green transition, a current trend in the construction sector is to utilize more wood and lightweight composites, aiming at a reduction of the embodied energy in buildings. At the same time, with a focus on circularity and reuse, large-span structures are preferable, since they provide more flexibility for future uses of the building. The mix of large spans and lightweight structures pose a risk in terms of increased vibration levels. Hence, assessment of the vibroacoustic performance of a building is necessary in the early design stage to guide the designers towards useful solutions. This paper presents a computational framework for such assessment. While the framework is based on the combination of advanced digital tools for architectural design and rigorous finite-element modelling of the structure, a simple-to-use spreadsheet interface allows the non-experienced used to perform analysis. To provide an example, a small building made of cross-laminated timber has been analysed regarding its steady-state response to time-harmonic excitation on a floor. The paper demonstrates how representative acceleration levels can be achieved at a low computational cost.