St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center recently underwent an expansion and renovation project consolidating the services of its merger partner, Mt. Sinai Hospital. The major component of the project is the new 358,000 square foot John T. O’Connell Tower. It includes 108 intermediate-care beds, 42 ICU beds, women’s health, ambulatory services and expanded medical/surgical beds, operating suites, and emergency services.

Acentech consulted on noise and vibration control of the mechanical equipment and emergency generators serving the new tower. We reviewed the structural design for the interstitial mechanical room floor as well as the proposed vibration isolation mounts to examine the level of vibration transmission to the operating room floor below. Our structural dynamics consultants reviewed the structural design and made recommendations to reduce the level of footfall generated vibration in the operating rooms.

Additionally, based on published and in-house data and standard building models, we predicted the noise and vibration levels that would be generated by the helicopters on the hospital’s rooftop heliport. We predicted the noise and vibration levels that would be experienced in the hospital from helicopter operations, paying particular attention to patient rooms and other noise-sensitive spaces. Acentech’s vibration consultants constructed a dynamic model of the building and calculated the expected helicopter-induced vibrations on the patient care floor. Lastly we recommended changes to the building construction to provide adequate sound isolation to the occupied hospital spaces below the heliport.