BIODYNAMIC MODELING OF THE HUMAN ACTIONS IN THE DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF FOOTBRIDGE

Resumo

Civil structures such as footbridges and floors are commonly subject to dynamic loads due to human
activities such as walking, running and jumping. Currently there are several light and slender structures with low
natural frequencies, which are susceptible to human actions, generating discomfort and structural safety risks
problems. In most cases the human induced loads on footbridges are considered as equivalent static loads or as
moving loads. This paper presents a biodynamic modeling of human walking or running on footbridges,
considering people as a simple spring-mass-damper system. The dynamic analysis was based on the finite element
method and implemented using Scilab open-source software for numerical computation. The results showed that
crowd load can significantly change the responses in relation to the moving load because of the addition of mass
and damping to the system and due the dynamic interaction between structure and people.