Experimental Verification of a Substructure-Based Model to Describe Pedestrian–Bridge Interaction

Abstract

An increasing number of structures, and in particular pedestrian bridges, experience excessive vibration levels when they are dynamically excited by humans in motion. Although several models have been presented to incorporate the influence of a single pedestrian traversing a flexible structure, there is no commonly accepted method to include the presence of dynamic interactions that results in complex time-varying and coupled dynamics. This paper presents a new coupled model shown to be effective in modeling the coupled dynamics associated with pedestrian–bridge interaction (PBI). Through a series of experiments involving three human subjects walking under different conditions, the model was validated in accordance to its capability to reproduce and replicate the complex vibration patterns observed on a full-scale bridge with a single pedestrian. The results demonstrate that the PBI model provides an effective and reliable approach to simulate human–structure interaction.