Structural vibration in buildings can be detected by the occupants and can affect them in many ways; their quality of life can be reduced, as can their working efficiency. BS 6472-1 provides best available information on the application of methods of measuring and evaluating vibration in order to assess the likelihood of adverse comment.
BS 6472-1:2008 provides guidance on predicting human response to vibration in buildings over the frequency range 0.5 Hz to 80 Hz. Frequency weighting curves for human beings exposed to whole-body vibration are included, together with advice on measurement methods to be employed. Methods of assessing continuous, intermittent and impulsive vibration are presented.
BS 6472-1:2008 describes how to determine the vibration dose value, VDV, from frequency-weighted vibration measurements. The vibration dose value is used to estimate the probability of adverse comment which might be expected from human beings experiencing vibration in buildings. Consideration is given to the time of day and use made of occupied space in buildings, whether residential, office or workshop.
BS 6472-1 offers guidance on how people inside buildings respond to building vibration: the judgement criteria are more stringent at higher frequencies than in the superseded standard due to changes in the vertical frequency weighting.
The standard no longer uses basi-centric coordinates that move with the orientation of the human body but uses the geocentric coordinate system in which the vertical and horizontal axes are earth-centred and hence the weightings for supine subjects exposed to motion in the back-to-chest and foot-to-head axes are exchanged compared with previous versions of the standard.
Together with BS 6472-2:2008 this part of BS 6472 supersedes BS 6472:1992, which is withdrawn.
