Due to their low self-weight and high strength, precast and prestressed hollow core concrete slabs are widely used in construction. However, the combination of low self-weight and long span implies that the slabs are sensitive to vibrations induced by human activities. In this work, experimental tests and numerical analyses are performed in order to understand the dynamic behaviour of hollow core concrete floors. For the experiments, a test floor of dimension 10 m × 7.2 m and consisting of 6 hollow core elements was built. Very good agreements between experimental and numerical results have been obtained. Comprehensive numerical parametric analyses have been performed in order to determine the optimal value of the material parameters.

Precast and prestressed hollow-core concrete slabs are widely used in construction. The combination of low self-weight and high strength of such slabs makes it possible to design floors with long spans. However, this also implies that the slabs are sensitive to human-induced vibrations. The purpose of this work was to develop a methodology to implement finite-shell-element models that can be used to analyse the dynamic behaviour of hollow-core concrete slabs. Three different shell models with different material properties (orthotropic material, isotropic material with strips and isotropic material) were designed and tested. The models were calibrated and assessed using experimental results obtained on a test structure of dimensions 10 m × 7·2 m consisting of six hollow-core elements.