• A "Perfect" bay is one that "perfectly" matches the regular orthogonal bays described in the Design Guide. Beams in those bays are painted blue.
• An "Imperfect" bay is one for which part of the bay exhibits characteristics of a "Perfect" bay but has one or more geometric features that deviate from such. Beams in those bays are painted yellow.
• An "Irregular" bay is one that does not conform to those bays described in the Design Guide. Miscellaneous beams that are not part of a bay are also included in this classification. Beams in those bays are painted gray.

Although the geometry is exported from RAM Steel to FloorVibe, all vibration criteria and other pertinent data must be specified in FloorVibe.

All vibration analysis results are obtained directly from FloorVibe.

FloorVibe must be installed in order for this feature to be available.

For "Irregular" bays (gray) no vibration analysis is performed, as that analysis would be meaningless (and probably erroneous). When an "Irregular" bay member is selected for analysis, an message is given indicating that no analysis can be performed on that bay.

For "Perfect" bays, those in which the bay "perfectly" match the Design Guide bays, the vibration analysis is performed directly by launching FloorVibe with all pertinent size and geometry data passed from RAM Steel to FloorVibe.

For "Imperfect" bays, those bays that exhibit some characteristic but have some deviation from the "Perfect" bay, the vibration analysis cannot be performed until after the user has "idealized" the bay by indicating how those deviations should be appropriately approximated as a "Perfect" bay. To accommodate this, a dialog box appears showing the framing of the bay selected and the corresponding idealized bay. Edit boxes and controls in the dialog box contain the data defining the bay. This data is filled in as much as possible by the program; where there is ambiguity or where there are significant variations from the configuration of a "Perfect" bay, the values are left blank. All entered values should be verified and any missing data supplied by the user. When the all of the necessary data has been entered, selecting OK will cause the FloorVibe program to be launched with the data as specified.

To assist the user in determining the data to enter into the Define Idealized Framing dialog box, the reasons that the bay was not considered a Perfect bay are listed in the "Bay Imperfections" section. The beam and girder sizes are shown on the Actual Framing graphic; by selecting the Show Length button the beam and girder lengths will be shown instead.

The Floor Width and Floor Length values represent the distances between slab edges or bays of significantly different framing. When the bay is a "Perfect" bay the program determines these values automatically by determining the extent of additional "Perfect" bays in each direction and summing up these distances. If slab edges or walls are encountered during this search, those elements are assumed to define the limits of the Floor Width and Floor Length values, as well as any bay whose length is less than one-half of that of the bay selected, or any bay with a change in the direction of the framing. This approach may be conservative as it will ignore the contribution of any "Imperfect" bays to these values (which in some cases could be included in the values). See Design Guide #11 for more information on the definition of these values. If the bay selected for analysis is not a "Perfect" bay, these values are not calculated automatically, but must be determined and entered by the user.

When the bay is adjacent to an opening, the program automatically selects the Mezzanine checkbox. Generally exterior wall systems provide significant damping to vibration, so the program does not automatically select that option when the bay is adjacent to the building edge. However, if the exterior wall system does not provide any damping, the user should manually select the Mezzanine option when the bay is an edge bay.

Refer to the documentation for more information.

Channels and rectangular hollow sections are exported to FloorVibe as User Defined shapes.

Built-up I-shapes are exported to FloorVibe as User Defined shapes.

When a joist or joist girder is a special joist as indicated by a size of "xxGSP" or "xxSJxx", you must specify an equivalent joist or girder before FloorVibe can be launched. Joist Girder depths must also be established.

For Castellated beams the section properties passed from RAM Steel to FloorVibe are based on the design dt value. If in the Define Idealized Framing dialog box the user selects a different Castellated beam size, the value of dt defaults to the value of dtstandard given in the Castellated beam design tables, but the user can modify that value.

For Cellular beams the section properties passed from RAM Steel to FloorVibe are based on the design Do and S values (S _max for optimized sizes and S _actual for user-specified sizes). If in the Define Idealized Framing dialog box the user selects a different Cellular beam size, the value of Do defaults to the value of Do _standard given in the Cellular beam design tables and the corresponding S _max, but the user can modify that value.