Steel-concrete composite floors dynamic assessment when subjected to human walking loads

Resumo

This work aims to evaluate the people-structure dynamic interaction effect on the floor’s structural
behaviour, considering the development of experimental tests and also numerical modelling. This way, the

investigated structural model is related to a steel-concrete composite floor building which is composed of a hot-
rolled framing system, with a total area equal to 1300 m2. The floor system is used for normal school occupancy

and is supported by steel-concrete composite columns with a ceiling height of 3.40 m. In this investigation, the
biodynamic models associated with “spring-mass-damper” systems with one degree of freedom (SDOF) were
adopted aiming to represent the people’s walking on the investigated floor. The proposed numerical model,
developed for the steel-concrete composite floor building dynamic analysis, adopted the usual mesh refinement
techniques present in finite element method (FEM) simulations implemented in the ANSYS computational
program. Considering the experimental results calibration, the investigated floor dynamic response was
evaluated based on a parametric study, to study the influence of the people’s step frequencies, number of people
walking and stationary on the floor, structural damping, and also different trajectories of people walking on the
structure. The composite floor dynamic response was determined based on the displacement and acceleration
values, and the results were compared with those calculated utilising the traditional dynamic loading
mathematical models (“only-force models”); and with recommended limits for excessive vibrations related to the
design codes, aiming to assess the floor human comfort.