Application of a Fast Vibration Assessment Protocol for Joisted Timber Floors via Smartphone Devices

Due to their high stiffness‐to‐mass‐density‐ratio, timber joisted floors are highly susceptible to human‐induced vibrations. Typical methods for assessing the comfort performance of wooden floors generally involve expensive instrumentation and a significant amount of time. In this work, a fast assessment program for the comfort evaluation of timber joisted floors via smartphone is proposed, based on extended experimental analysis. To optimize the accuracy of the fast protocol, calibration and corrective coefficients are firstly developed in laboratory conditions, comparing the vibration recordings of traditional force‐balance accelerometers and those collected by a commercial smartphone device, for a timber floor prototype. Moreover, the minimum number of walking repetitions to ensure the accuracy of estimates is extracted via statistical simulation. The robustness and potential of the method are finally tested on‐site, considering two timber joisted floors subjected to human‐induced action, and comparing the smartphone fast assessment acquisitions with the outcomes of a complete professional accelerometer test program.