Civil Engineering Association

Ground vibration from road construction

There is an increasing requirement to control and manage ground vibrations generated by road construction and maintenance activities through project specific construction management plans. The objective is to minimise any potential adverse effects. The ability to reliably estimate vibration levels of specific construction activities at the project planning stage and to assess their likely effect on structures and their occupants is therefore required. Typical vibration characteristics for various activities, including site preparation, dynamic compaction and piling were measured for representative equipment and soil types to obtain baseline values for use in preconstruction assessments and to enable validation of available prediction methods. A review of international standards was also undertaken leading to two proposed criteria against which predicted vibrations can be assessed for damage and human perception. The possible application of data acquired from commonly used geotechnical methods, notably scala penetrometer for estimating soil attenuation and falling weight deflectometer to generate site-specific predictor curves for impact-related construction activity, was additionally investigated. This led to the recommendation of three methods, which make use of readily available data, for estimating vibration levels from construction activity at any specified distance from the vibration source.