Abstract
Since the construction of a noise barrier beside the motorway near their home, a family suffers from nuisance caused by vibration. Prior to the building activities of the noise barrier there had never been a problem with vibration. The family is convinced that the noise barrier in some way introduces or amplifies the vibration caused by traffic using the motorway.
In order to find the cause of the vibration and the relevance of the noise barrier, vibration measurements have been done. These measurements show that the traffic using the motorway is indeed the main cause of the vibration in the building. The noise barrier, however/has no influence on the vibrations. The fact that nuisance occurred in the same period as the building activities, is mainly due to the fast decline of the road-surface influenced by the building activities. The measurements also showed that the floor (especially the bedroom floor) reacted very strongly to vibration with a dominant frequency of 17 Hz.
To reduce the vibration, it has been advised that the road-surface of the motorway be renewed and the possibility of modifying the floor to reduce the 17Hz resonance be considered.