Southern Cross University

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23rd Australasian Conference on the Mechanics of Structures and Materials

2014

Measurement of plate compaction-induced ground

vibrations
H Hao
Curtin University

Publication details
Hao, H 2014, 'Measurement of plate compaction-induced ground vibrations', in ST Smith (ed.), 23rd Australasian Conference on the
Mechanics of Structures and Materials (ACMSM23), vol. II, Byron Bay, NSW, 9-12 December, Southern Cross University, Lismore,
NSW, pp. 727-732. ISBN: 9780994152008.

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 23rd Australasian Conference on the Mechanics of Structures and Materials (ACMSM23)
Byron Bay, Australia, 9-12 December 2014, S.T. Smith (Ed.)

MEASUREMENT OF PLATE COMPACTION-INDUCED GROUND

VIBRATIONS

H. Hao*
School of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Curtin University
Kent Street, Bentley WA 6102, Australia. hong.hao@curtin.edu.au (Corresponding Author)

ABSTRACT

Plate compaction is often carried out on road and low-rise residential building construction sites to
avoid the effects of differential settlements. The compaction activities generate ground vibrations,
which may cause disturbance to people in close proximity and in extreme cases damage adjacent
buildings if the vibrations are of a significant magnitude. Currently, in construction practice the
minimum distance required between a plate compactor and an adjacent building is based on
experience, rules of thumb and conservative practices. Some literature and guides are available for
allowable ground vibration criteria, but little research has been carried out on ground vibrations
generated by plate compactors. This study investigates ground vibrations generated by plate
compactors. The vibrations are measured at various distances from the plate compactors on site to
document the attenuation rate. These attenuation rates, and the allowable ground vibration criteria
offered by various guides are used to determine the safe operating distances for structural safety.
Discussions and comparisons on various guide criteria for structural safety are also given in this paper.

KEYWORDS

Plate compaction, ground vibration, wave propagation, vibration criteria, building structures.

INTRODUCTION

Soil compaction is a common technology used for site treatment. It is undertaken to increase the
strength of the soil and decrease short and long term differential settlement. There are many methods
and different machines used for compaction. Plate compactor is one of the popularly used tools to
compact the site for road and low-rise building structures. Problems may arise when compaction
activities occur too close to adjacent buildings, which is often inevitable for effective land use and for
constructing roads to access to the buildings. The adjacent structures can be exposed to the risk of
damage. The study of the risk of damage to nearby structures from plate compaction is largely absent
in literature. One such study was presented by Jewell (1984), in which the attenuation rates of ground
vibrations from four different plate compactors measured at a sandy soil site were determined. The
measured root mean squared (RMS) and resultant peak particle velocity (PPV) were presented.

Despite a general lack of studies on plate compactor induced ground vibrations, a significant number
of publications regarding construction activities, mainly blasting and pile-driving induced ground
vibrations are available in literature. Many empirical formulae have been proposed to predict the peak
values of construction ground vibrations. Because of the specific site conditions and construction
equipment used, these empirical formulae differ from each other significantly. Dowding (1996) gives a
very comprehensive review of construction-induced ground vibrations and their effects on structures.
It is found that the normalized peak values at the same distance could differ by more than 100 times.
Consequently, empirical formula obtained from one site may not give reliable prediction of ground
vibration amplitudes and attenuation at another site, even if the two sites have similar soil properties.

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727
There are no universally accepted allowable ground vibration levels for building structures either. This
is because structure response not only depends on ground vibration amplitude, but also on ground
vibration frequencies and duration, as well as structural conditions and vibration characteristics.
Different standardization organizations give different allowable vibration limits (e.g., BS5228-2:2009,
BS5228-4:1992, BS7385-2:1993, CEN 2007, DIN 4150-3 1999), varying from 3 mm/s for historical
and vibration sensitive structures to 50 mm/s for heavy reinforced industry buildings, depending on the
vibration duration, namely transient or continuous.

This paper reviews the ground vibration attenuation relations and allowable vibration limits for
building structures. Field measured ground vibrations from plate compactor compactions are then
presented. Through comparisons of the ground vibration attenuation and allowable vibration limits,
safe compaction distance can be determined. The results presented in this paper can be used as a guide
in determining the safe distance for performing the construction activities.

GROUND VIBRATION WAVE PROPAGATION AND ATTENUATION

From the theory of wave propagation, ground vibration attenuation from a point „a‟ on ground surface
at a distance ra from the vibration source to point „b‟ at a distance rb can be modelled by
Ab  Aa ( a )  e[ ( ra  rb )]
r
(1)
rb
where Aa and Ab are the peak ground vibration values at the two points, and the coefficient α relates to
the material damping and coefficient β relates to geometric spreading. β=0.5, 1 and 2 correspond
respectively to Rayleigh wave, body wave propagating along the surface and body wave propagating
in the ground. The coefficient α can be estimated by (Massarsch 2004)
2Df
 (2)
Cs
where D is the material damping, f is the predominant vibration frequency and Cs is the shear wave
velocity of the site. The above equations are derived based on the assumption that wave propagation
medium is elastic, isotropic and homogeneous. In practice, the exact value of α is difficult to be
determined. The material damping D depends not only on soil properties but also on vibration levels,
and ground vibrations contain a rather wide frequency band rather than a single frequency f.

Based on field measured ground vibrations from impact pile driving at four sites, Hao and Ang (1998)
derived the material damping coefficients, which varies from 0.019 on a site with fine to coarse sand
to 0.125 on a site with fine sand. Amick and Gendreau (2000) summarised the available material
damping coefficients obtained by different researchers through field measurements. α value varies
from 0.0 to 0.26, implying significantly different attenuation rates from site to site.

ALLOWABLE GROUND VIBRATION LIMITS

Many Standardization Organizations provide guidance on allowable ground vibration limits for
building structures. Those commonly used in practice are reviewed and discussed in this section.

Comparison of Various Guide Values of Ground Vibration Limits

PPV is the most commonly used ground vibration parameter in defining the allowable vibration limits.
In Australia, British Standards BS5228 is commonly used. Table 1 compares the ground vibration
limits in the 1992 and 2009 edition of BS5228. As can be noticed, the PPV limits increased
substantially in the 2009 edition. The exact reason for this increase is not known. However, reference
to BS7385-2:1993 is given in BS5228-2:2009 and the PPV limits in the 2009 edition are the same as
those given in BS7385-2: 1993. A detailed examination of BS7385-2:1993 revealed that the vibration
limits were determined mainly from blasting ground vibrations. Therefore the updated vibration limit
of 50 mm/s might be unconservative for ground vibrations induced by soil compaction.

ACMSM23 2014 728

 Table 1. PPV limits in BS5228 1992 and 2009 Editions
BS5228-4:1992 BS5228-2:2009
Building Type ≤50Hz Building Type 4-15 Hz >15Hz
Buildings of 2mm/s Reinforced or framed, industrial 50mm/s 50mm/s
Architectural merit and heavy commercial buildings
Residential 5mm/s Unreinforced or light framed 15mm/s at 4 20mm/s at 15
structures, residential or light Hz, 20mm/s Hz, 50mm/s at
commercial buildings at 15 Hz 40 Hz and above
Light Commercial 10mm/s - - -
Heavy Industrial 15mm/s - - -

Vibration limits given in Eurocode 3-Part 5:Piling (Cen 2007) are listed in Table 2, and the vibration
limits given in the German Code DIN 4150 (1999) are listed in Table 3.

Table 2. Eurocde 3-Part 5 (PPV in mm/s)

Type of Buildings of architectural Residential Light Heavy Buried
structures merit Commercial Industrial
Continuous 2 5 10 15 25
Transient 4 10 20 30 40

Table 3. Guide Value of allowable PPV (mm/s) (DIN 4150 1999)

Short-term vibration Long-term
Type of Structure Foundation Top Storey vibration
<10Hz 10-50Hz 50-100Hz All Frequencies All frequencies
Commercial and industrial 20 20-40 40-50 40 10
Residential 5 5-15 15-20 15 5
Sensitive to vibration 3 3-8 8-10 8 2.5

There are a number of other guides defined by different standardization organizations. Owing to the
page limits, they are not included here. As can be noticed above, depending on the ground vibration
duration and frequency contents, as well as structural types and conditions, the allowable PPV vary
from 2 mm/s to 50 mm/s. Although there are reports that no structural damage was observed at PPV
higher than 50 mm/s, there are also reports that damages to structures occurred at about 7.5 - 9 mm/s
(Caltrans 2004), and to interior and exterior finishes such as plaster and stucco at 2 to 3 mm/s (Rainer
et al. 1988). Therefore it is very important to define a credible vibration limit before construction work.

Transient and Continuous Vibration

Some guidance distinguishes allowable PPV if the vibration is continuous or transient. Blasting ground
vibration is considered as transient as its duration is in an order of mini seconds, and traffic induced
ground vibration is considered as continuous as its duration is in an order of seconds. German Code
DIN 4150:1999 defines a short-term vibration is that it does not produce resonance in the structure,
otherwise it is considered as a long-term vibration. BS7385-2:1993 states that a continuous vibration
depends on the frequency and damping of the structure, implying that a ground vibration is considered
as continuous if it has sufficient number of cycles to build up structural responses.

Vibration Resonance

The above allowable PPVs refer to the ground vibrations measured at or near the foundation of the
structure. Using these vibration levels to assess the building performance is satisfactory for short-term
excitations and non-resonant conditions for which the amplification from foundation to upper storey is
close to 1.0. At resonance and when ground vibration duration is sufficiently long, the amplification
ratio may be 10 or more, resulting in much greater deformations between the footing and the top of the
building. BS5228-2:2009 allows a reduction up to 50% on the allowable ground vibration amplitude at

ACMSM23 2014 729

resonance. This allowance is reasonable for a blasting ground motion with very short duration. Other
codes such as DIN4150 require to adopting the same allowable PPV at all the building levels. This
implies that the ground vibration level at resonance can be reduced by 10 times for a structure with
damping ratio 5%. In a case study of effect of train-induced ground vibration (Rainer et al. 1988), the
allowable vibration level to prevent structural damage is taken as 5 mm/s, but the allowable ground
vibration level is taken as 0.5mm/s in consideration of the 10 times amplification on structural
responses.

The above reviews and discussions indicate that ground vibration duration, possible structural
resonance and structural conditions all need be considered when defining the allowable ground
vibration levels. As plate compactor compaction usually takes place near low-rise residential buildings,
and the induced ground vibrations are continuous, without losing the generality, in this study the
allowable ground vibration level is taken as 5 mm/s.

MEASUREMENTS OF PLATE COMPACTOR COMPACTION GROUND VIBRATIONS

Vibration measurements were carried out at three sites in Perth Metropolitan area during plate
compaction as shown in Figure 1. Two types of plate compactors were involved in the three
constructions site. In this study, owing to page limit, the differences of ground vibrations induced by
two types of compactors are not discussed.

a) b) c) d) e)
Figure 1. Three sites for ground vibration measurements: a) site 1: fine to medium-grained sand,
Dynapac LH700 plate compactor; b) site 2: white fine to medium-grained calcareous sand, Wacker
Neuson DPU 100-70 plate compactor; c) site 3: pale yellowish brown, medium to coarse-grained sand,
Dynapac LH700 plate compactor; d) Dynapac; and e) Wacker Neuson compactor

High resolution (10µm/s2) and measuring range ±3.0g Kistler accelerometers of type 8330A(X) as
shown in Figure 2 were used in the measurements. Triaxial ground vibrations were measured by
sticking three accelerometers on three faces of a rigid steel cube, which was pushed into the soil. The
accelerometers were connected to a 4-channel signal amplifier, which was then connected to a 16-
channel data logger. The sampling frequency was set to be 1000Hz. In the measurements, the ground
vibrations were recorded when the compactor was at different locations between 1 m and 21 m (site 1)
or 1 m and 15 m (sites 2 and 3 owing to site dimension limitation) from the accelerometer. Figure 2
shows the typical measured ground vibration time histories, the signal amplifier and data logger, and
the sensor block with accelerometers used for the measurements.
40 12 12

30 9 9

6
20 6

3
Velocity (mm/s)

Velocity (mm/s)
Velocity (secs)

10 3
0
0 0
-3
-10 -3
-6

-20 -6
-9

-30 -12 -9

a) b)
-40
0 0.5 1

c)
1.5 2 2.5
Time (secs)
3 d)3.5 4 4.5 5 e) -15
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Time (secs)
1.4 1.6 1.8 2
-12
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Time (secs)
3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Figure 2. Typical measured ground acceleration time histories 3 m from the compactor: a) site 1; b)
site 2; c) site 3; d) data logger and amplifier; and e) sensor block with Kistler accelerometers

The measured ground acceleration time histories were baseline corrected, and then integrated to obtain
the velocity time histories. The PPVs in the three directions were extracted. The results indicate that
the radial and vertical PPVs are substantially larger than the transverse PPVs. In this paper, however,
only the resultant PPVs are presented. The resultant velocity time histories were obtained by square
root summation of squared velocities (SRSS) in the three directions. It should be noted that the ground

ACMSM23 2014 730

vibrations in the three directions usually do not reach the peak simultaneously. Therefore the peak
resultant velocity is obtained from the resultant velocity time history, instead of the SRSS of the PPVs
in the three directions.

40 40 40

Site 1 Site 2 Site 3

Allowed Allowed Allowed
32 Measured 32 Fitted 32 Fitted
Fitted Measured Measured
PPV(mm/s)

PPV(mm/s)

PPV(mm/s)
24 24 24

16 16 16

8 8 8

0 0 0
0 3 6 9 12 15 18 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 0 3 6 9 12 15 18
Dis(m) Dis(m) Dis(m)
Figure 3. Measured and fitted resultant PPV at three sites and the 5 mm/s allowable PPV

Figure 3 shows the measured resultant PPVs, their best fitted attenuation curves according to Eq. (1),
and the 5 mm/s allowable PPV. As shown, among the three sites, site 1 has the relatively larger PPVs
at the same distance although the same Dynapac LH700 plate compactor were used at both the site 1
and site 3, indicating the influences of site conditions on ground vibrations. Site 1 consists of fine to
medium-grained sand, which is denser than site 3 with medium to coarse-grained sand. Therefore
wave attenuates slower in site 1 as compared to that in site 3. If the allowable PPV is taken as 5 mm/s,
the plate compactor compaction can only be carried out at a distance of 18 m from the existing
building in site 1 and 15 m from the building in site 2 and site 3. If compaction needs be carried out
nearer to the building, some site preparation, such as digging a trench along the building foundation to
block the ground vibration wave, is suggested before the compaction work. If it is possible, monitoring
the actual ground vibration levels on the foundation of existing buildings by experienced personnel is
also highly recommended in case some legal disputes arise.

The best fitted attenuation coefficients α and β are given in Table 4 for the three sites. Assuming the
ground vibration consists of only Rayleigh wave, i.e., β=0.5, the regression analyses are carried out
and the corresponding attenuation coefficient α* is also given in the table.

Table 4. Attenuation coefficients of measured ground vibrations at the three sites

Resultant PPV
Site α β α* ( β = 0.5)
1 0.00441 0.9756 0.06386
2 0.0736 0.2401 0.03343
3 0.1235 -0.1029 -0.01474

As can be noticed, the best fitted attenuation coefficients for site1 and site 2 are positive, indicating
wave attenuation with distance. The best fitted attenuation coefficient β is negative, or α is negative if
β is taken as 0.5, indicating Eq. (1) is not the appropriate relation to model wave attenuation in site 3.
It should be noted that this is not uncommon, many fitted attenuation coefficients according to Eq.(1)
from measured ground vibrations reported in literature give negative values. This is because of many
uncertainties associated with soil conditions and surrounding structures that might influence wave
propagations. For example, foundations of the adjacent structures will cause wave reflection, which
may enhance the recorded ground vibrations near the foundations, and lead to recordings of wave
increment instead of attenuation. Moreover, as can be noticed, the β value at site 1 is close to 1.0,
indicating the ground vibrations can be better modelled as body wave propagating along the ground
surface, whereas the ground vibrations at site 2 and site 3 cannot be properly represented by any
dominant wave types.

ACMSM23 2014 731

CONCLUSIONS

This paper has presented a review of allowable ground vibration levels to building structures and
available attenuation relations of ground vibrations induced by construction activities. There are no
universally acceptable ground vibration levels for structural safety as structural capacity to resist
ground vibrations depends not only on ground vibration amplitude, but also on ground vibration
frequency and duration, as well as structural conditions and vibration characteristics. Careful
evaluations and assessments are needed for defining an acceptable ground vibration level for a
particular structure. Ground vibrations induced by plate compactor compactions were measured at
three sites in Perth Metropolitan area. The attenuation relations of the measured ground vibrations
were derived and presented. Using these attenuation relations, the safe distances for conducting plate
compactor compaction activities for adjacent building structures can be determined.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges Mr. Thomas D. Eyres, final year project student in the University
of Western Australia for conducting the field ground vibration measurements.

REFERENCES

Amick, H. and Gendreau, M. (2000) “Construction Vibrations and Their Impact on Vibration-
Sensitive Facilities”, in ASCE Construction Congress 6, Orlando, Florida.
BS5228-2:2009, (2008) “Code of practice for noise and vibration control on construction and open
sites – Part 2: Vibration”, British Standard, BSI.
BS5228-4:1992, (1992) “Code of practice for noise and vibration control on construction and open
sites – Part 4: Code and practice for noise and vibration control applicable to piling operations”,
British Standard, BSI.
BS7385-2:1993, 91993) “evaluation and measurement for vibration in buildings – Part 2: Guide to
damage levels from groundborne vibration”, British Standard, BSI.
Caltrans, California Department of Transportation Division of Environmental Analysis, Office of
Noise and Hazardous Waste Management, Sacramento, CA (2004) “TRANSPORTATION
RELATED EARTHBORNE VIBRATIONS: Caltrans Experiences”, Technical Advisory,
Vibration, TAV-04-01-R0201, January 23.
CEN (2007) “Eurocode 3: 1992, Design of steel structures, chapter 5, piling.”, CEN.
DIN 4150-3 (1999) “Structural vibration – Part 3: Effects of vibration on structures”, German
Standards Association.
Dowding, C.H. (2000) “Construction Vibrations”, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey.
Hao, H. and Ang T. C. (1998) “Measurement and analysis of impact pile driving induced surface
ground motions”, Journal of Civil and Structural Engineering, the Institution of Engineers,
Singapore, Vol. 38(2), pp19-26.
Jewell, R. J. (1984) “An Evaluation of Vibratory Plate Compactors‟. Proceedings Fourth Australia-
New Zealand Conference on Geomechanics, Institution of Engineers, Australia, Perth, Western
Australia, 14 – 18 May 1984 Volume 2, pp. 450-455.
Massarsch, K. R. (2004) “Mitigation of Traffic-induced Ground Vibrations”. Keynote Lecture, The
11th International Conference on Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (ICSDEE) and The
Third International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering (ICEGE), 7–9th January,
2004, Berkeley, California. Proceedings Vol. 1 pp. 22 - 31.
Rainer, J.H., Pernica, G., Maurenbrecher, A.H.P., Law, K.T. and Allen, D.E. (1988) “Effect of train-
induced vibrations on houses – A case study”, Institute for Research in Construction, National
Research Council of Canada.

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