Human action on structures comparison between numerical load models and experimental data

Abstract

Modelling of human-induced loads has been proved to be very difficult as we can see in several approaches of varying complexity that have been presented in the literature. Crowd induced dynamic loading in large structures, such as gymnasiums or stadiums, is usually modelled as a series of harmonic loads which are defined in terms of their Fourier coefficients. Different values of these Fourier coefficients that were obtained from full scale measurements can be found in codes. In this paper, a study of loads generated by different human actions (jumping, walking and dancing) is presented. A comparison between experimental data measured with instrumented insoles and numerical data obtained with numerical models has been carried out. Tests have been performed on a structure designed to be a gymnasium, which has natural frequencies within that range of the excitation frequencies.Keywords-human induced load, dynamic test, walking load, jumping load, dancing load, full scale test. I.