Experimental and Numerical Dynamic Evaluation of Profiled Steel Decking Slab in a Container House Using Mems

Abstract

The reuse of shipping containers is common in civil construction, not only for ecological reasons but also for speeding up the construction time, thus favoring the decrease in the payback time of the applied financial investment. Consequently, technological developments guarantee this trend with lighter structural elements, thus occurring natural frequencies closer to the frequency ranges of dynamic excitations associated with human activities. Therefore, a direct consequence of this new design trend is a considerable increase in problems related to unwanted vibrations in steel and concrete composite slabs, which arise from rhythmic actions, and external vibrations arising from earthquakes, which must be analysed to meet the comfort and safety of residents. Thus, this study aims to present a vibration analysis in a composite floor slab, built in steel deck 59S, of a residence built with reuse maritime containers in the municipality of Gravatá in Pernambuco, Brazil. The structure consists of three floors, with the cantilever slab analysed with dimensions of 8.24 m wide and 4.00 m long. In the experimental phase, vibration analysis was carried out through the heel impact test to obtain the natural frequencies, which had average values of 7.0 Hz, and average values of 7.14% for the damping ratio of the slab, a MicroElectroMechanical System (MEMS) was used, which are accelerometers of signals present in smartphone devices. Subsequently, using the software SCIA Engineer, the numerical analysis of the model was carried out, where usual discretization techniques were used through the Finite Element Method (FEM) to evaluate the structural behavior against dynamic actions, thus obtaining the results of natural frequencies, average values of 6.46 Hz, and modal shapes. With this, it was possible to verify the results regarding the natural frequencies of vibration, analysing the usability, comfort, and health of the structure according to the current normative codes. Finally, this study presents a comparison of modal parameters in numerical and experimental simulations against the dynamic actions that must be considered in the design of steel deck slabs when in a cantilever situation for the type of structure studied to validate comfort and building safety caused by dynamic effects developed by human behavior.