Vibration analysis of footbridges: an overview of the current practice

Abstract

The design of a footbridge is typically controlled by serviceability criteria. The dynamic forces induced by pedestrians may result in high-amplitude vibrations that the users may feel as uncomfortable, or unsafe. As a consequence of the several cases of footbridge vibration problems that occurred over the last two decades, research has been conducted to improve design criteria that account for pedestrian loading, traffic density, and comfort levels. To date, there are no accepted design guidelines in the United States to assess vibration levels in footbridges. This paper offers a general overview of the current practice for the vibration analysis of footbridges.

Interaction Phenomena to Be Accounted for Human-Induced Vibration Control of Lightweight Structures

“…Regarding human-induced loads, experimental campaigns using force plates (Parkhouse and Ewins, 2006), sensors (Moreu et al, 2020), shoe insoles (Wang H. et al, 2019), or computer vision approaches (Wang Y. et al, 2019), to mention a few, have been carried out to accurately characterize these actions. Thus, deterministic (Boniface et al, 2006;Heinemeyer et al, 2009) or stochastic (Casciati et al, 2017;Ramos-Moreno et al, 2020) models have been proposed over the years to predict the dynamic response of structures under the human actions. Codes and control design approaches consider that forces generated by human activities are the same on a flexible structure and on a rigid structure.…”