Experimentally estimated bipedal model parameters to simulate human- induced vibrations on footbridges

Resumo

The human-structure interaction in slender structures has received increasing attention from civil
engineers and researchers lately. For this reason, several pedestrian models that take into account the biodynamic
parameters of the human body have been widely studied. In this paper, results from a series of experimental
tests are used to obtain parameters for a bipedal walking model. The ground reaction forces (GRF) induced by
different people during walking on a test footbridge were measured using force platforms. The bipedal model is
then adjusted to match the measured pedestrian forces. Thus, a set of non-linear regression equations are proposed
to estimate the fundamental model parameters as functions of the pedestrian’s mass, height, and walking speed.
The new set of empirical equations resulted in improvements in the parameter expressions with a higher R-squared
compared to linear regression. Then, the numerical model is used to reproduce the experimental situations of
walking people on the structure, and the predicted vertical accelerations of the structure are compared with those
measured experimentally. The results show the suitability of the proposed numerical model to reproduce the
vibrations induced by people on pedestrian structures.