An Evaluation of Test and Physical Uncertainty of Measuring Vibration in Wooden Junctions

In the present paper a study of test and material uncertainty in modal analysis of certain wooden junctions is presented. The main structure considered here is a T-junction made from a particleboard plate connected to a spruce beam of rectangular cross section. The size of the plate is 1.2 m by 0.6 m. The T-junctions represent cut-outs of actual full size floor assemblies. The aim of the experiments is to investigate the underlying uncertainties of both the test method as well as variation in material and craftmanship. For this purpose, ten nominally identical junctions are tested and compared to each other in terms of modal parameters such as natural frequencies, modeshapes and damping. Considerations regarding the measurement procedure and test setup are discussed. The results indicate a large variation of the response at modes where the coupling of torsion in the beam to bending of the plate is significant.