Increasing strength of new structural materials and longer spans of new footbridges, accompanied with aesthetic requirements for greater slenderness, are resulting in more lively footbridge structures. In the past few years this issue attracted great public attention. The excessive lateral sway motion caused by crowd walking across the infamous Millennium Bridge in London is the prime example of the vibration serviceability problem of footbridges. In principle, consideration of footbridge vibration serviceability requires a characterisation of the vibration source, path and receiver. This paper is the most comprehensive review published to date of about 200 references which deal with these three key issues.The literature survey identified humans as the most important source of vibration for footbridges. However, modelling of the crowd-induced dynamic force is not clearly defined yet, despite some serious attempts to tackle this issue in the last few years.The vibration path is the mass, damping and stiffness of the footbridge. Of these, damping is the most uncertain but extremely important parameter as the resonant behaviour tends to govern vibration serviceability of footbridges.A typical receiver of footbridge vibrations is a pedestrian who is quite often the source of vibrations as well. Many scales for rating the human perception of vibrations have been found in the published literature. However, few are applicable to footbridges because a receiver is not stationary but is actually moving across the vibrating structure.During footbridge vibration, especially under crowd load, it seems that some form of humanstructure interaction occurs. The problem of influence of walking people on footbridge vibration properties, such as the natural frequency and damping is not well understood, let alone quantified.Finally, there is not a single national or international design guidance which covers all aspects of the problem comprehensively and some form of their combination with other published information is prudent when designing major footbridge structures. The overdue update of the current codes to reflect the recent research achievements is a great challenge for the next 5-10 years. Abbreviations:ASD-auto spectral density; DLF-dynamic load factor; DOF-degree of freedom; FE-finite element;FRF-frequency response function; MDOF-multiple-degree-of-freedom;MTMD-multiple tuned mass damper; RMS-root-mean-square;SDOF-single-degree-of-freedom; TLD-tuned liquid damper; TMD-tuned mass damperThis paper has been published under the following reference:Živanović, S., Vibration serviceability of footbridges under human-induced excitation: a literature review.
This work investigates potential engineering benefits of the pioneering application of simply extruded recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic fibres in structural concrete. Mechanical and serviceability properties of concrete are studied through the testing of seven series of specimens: one made of the plain concrete and, for each of the two fibre diameters Ø 1 = 0.25 mm and Ø 2 = 0.40 mm, three series with 0.40%, 0.75% and 1.25% volume fraction of fibres. While the compressive strength and the elastic modulus of concrete were unaffected, the tensile strength and flexural (rupture) modulus were marginally increased, between 3% and 14% in the presence of HDPE fibres. Fibres mainly contributed by providing the post-cracking flexural ductility and through improving serviceability properties of concrete such as the reduced plastic shrinkage cracking, drying shrinkage and water permeability. The durability of HDPE fibres was assessed by means of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging that showed no signs of their chemical deterioration in concrete. All findings suggest that recycled HDPE fibres can be instrumental in creating a new value chain in construction industry while also positively contributing to its environmental performance.
The finite element (FE) model updating technology was originally developed in the aerospace and mechanical engineering disciplines to automatically update numerical models of structures to match their experimentally measured counterparts. The process of updating identifies the drawbacks in the FE modelling and the updated FE model could be used to produce more reliable results in further dynamic analysis. In the last decade, the updating technology has been introduced into civil structural engineering. It can serve as an advanced tool for getting reliable modal properties of large structures. The updating process has four key phases: initial FE modelling, modal testing, manual model tuning and automatic updating (conducted using specialist software). However, the published literature does not connect well these phases, although this is crucial when implementing the updating technology. This paper therefore aims to clarify the importance of this linking and to describe the complete model updating process as applicable in civil structural engineering. The complete process consisting the four phases is outlined and brief theory is presented as appropriate. Then, the procedure is implemented on a lively steel box girder footbridge. It was found that even a very detailed initial FE model underestimated the natural frequencies of all seven experimentally identified modes of vibration, with the maximum error being almost 30%. Manual FE model tuning by trial and error found that flexible supports in the longitudinal direction should be introduced at the girder ends to improve correlation between the measured and FE-calculated modes. This significantly reduced the maximum frequency error to only 4%. It was demonstrated that only then could the FE model be automatically updated in a meaningful way. The automatic updating was successfully conducted by updating 22 uncertain structural parameters. Finally, a physical interpretation of all parameter changes is discussed. This interpretation is often missing in the published literature. It was found that the composite slabs were less stiff than originally assumed and that the asphalt layer contributed considerably to the deck stiffness. This paper has been published under the following reference:Živanović, S., Finite element modelling and updating of a lively footbridge: the complete process.
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