Vibration Measurement and Monitoring for Factories and Construction

What does the vibration measurement service cover?

• Machine vibration in factories transmitted through floors and structure to offices, laboratories or neighbouring buildings, with the machine and the frequency at fault identified
• Piling, drilling, compaction and demolition vibration at neighbouring buildings against peak particle velocity (PPV) limits to DIN 4150-3
• Blast vibration at mines and quarries under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment vibration standard, which sets a particle-velocity table over 1–40 Hz
• Continuous online building vibration monitoring with SMS, email or LINE alerts, for the duration of the works or as the EIA requires
• Pre-construction baseline and dilapidation surveys of neighbouring buildings, recording existing cracks before work starts — the single most important piece of evidence when a damage claim arrives
• Human response in buildings to ISO 2631-1 and ISO 2631-2 for housing, hospitals and offices
• Machine condition monitoring from vibration spectra to ISO 20816, catching imbalance, misalignment and bearing damage before the machine stops
• Vibration measurement for EIA reports on metro, expressway, port and power projects, during construction and operation

Which criteria decide whether vibration endangers a building?

Thailand has no general building-vibration limit in national law apart from blasting, so authorities and EIAs refer to international standards, with DIN 4150-3 the most used.

• DIN 4150-3 sets guide values for peak particle velocity at the foundation by building type and frequency: industrial buildings 20–50 mm/s, dwellings 5–20 mm/s, and sensitive or heritage buildings 3–10 mm/s for short-term vibration
• Long-term vibration from machinery uses much lower values, measured horizontally at the top floor: 5 mm/s for dwellings and 2.5 mm/s for heritage buildings
• ISO 4866 sets the measurement method, sensor positions and evaluation for building vibration
• The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment notification for quarries sets particle velocity by frequency, stricter than or close to DIN 4150-3 depending on the band
• Frequency matters: the same PPV below 10 Hz is more dangerous than at high frequency because it is close to the building's natural frequency, so a report without frequencies cannot assess risk

How does factory vibration affect people and machines?

• People feel vibration at levels tens of times below those that damage a building; around 0.1–0.3 mm/s is enough to generate complaints in housing, and ISO 2631-2 gives perception curves by frequency and time of day
• Offices, laboratories, operating theatres and precision production lines have stricter criteria of their own — see vibration-sensitive facilities
• Workers exposed to whole-body vibration (forklifts, trucks, heavy plant) and hand-arm vibration (power tools) are assessed to ISO 2631-1 and ISO 5349, which set daily exposure values A(8)
• A machine vibrating abnormally gives weeks of warning before failure: imbalance appears at running speed, misalignment at twice running speed, bearings at their characteristic high frequencies
• Machine vibration is often the origin of the low-frequency hum heard in neighbouring rooms, which a sound measurement alone cannot trace — see low-frequency noise

How does the measurement run?

• Scope: source type (machinery, piling, blasting), the buildings to protect, duration and the limits to report against — quote within one working day
• Pre-construction condition survey, photographing existing cracks and structural condition with positions, countersigned by both parties where possible
• Tri-axial sensors at the foundation or the ISO 4866 positions, alert thresholds set back from the DIN 4150-3 guide values, and the alerting tested before work starts
• Measurement during the works: PPV on all three axes, dominant frequency and time of every exceedance, matched to the site activity log
• Analysis and report: PPV time history, event table, comparison with the criteria and recommendations — a different piling method, a smaller charge per delay, isolation of a machine base
• Verification after the measures change, and a repeat condition survey after completion to close the matter

One-off measurement or continuous monitoring?

Both have their place, and many projects need both.

• An attended one-off measurement suits a specific machine, a complaint assessment, or the data needed to design a vibration-isolated base
• Continuous online monitoring suits piling and blasting, where the peaks are occasional and nobody is watching, works next to hospitals or heritage buildings, and projects where the EIA requires it; installed within a day
• Our online system logs each event with its waveform, alerts the contractor immediately so the method can be stopped or changed before damage occurs, and keeps the record for both parties — the principles are in online noise monitoring
• Projects that need noise and vibration together use the same station — see noise monitoring service

What you receive

• Reports in Thai and English: PPV time history, event table, frequency spectra and comparison with DIN 4150-3, ISO 2631 or the EIA criteria
• Pre- and post-construction condition survey reports with photographs and positions
• Real-time online dashboard access and the full alert log
• Engineering recommendations: alternative construction methods, blast limits, machine base isolation and outline drawings for the contractor
• Evidence that holds in disputes, insurance claims and in front of authorities, with sensor calibration certificates
• A real example: continuous vibration monitoring for piling next to a heritage building

Related services

This work is usually combined with Industrial & Occupational and Noise Monitoring as a Service. For the background before you decide, read Noise Monitoring: Surveys, Stations and Reporting in Noise 101.

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