Walking Model to Simulate Interaction Effects between Pedestrians and Lively Structures
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 143, Issue 9
Abstract
This paper focuses on evaluating the vertical movements that appear when a pedestrian is walking on a slender platelike structure. For this, the pedestrian is modeled by a dynamic system consisting of a concentrated mass, located in the pedestrian’s center of mass, supported by two springs that simulate the stiffness of the legs. The success of this simple mechanical model is that the resulting contact forces are well adjusted to those observed experimentally for human gait. In this way, the structure is undergoing the moving mass and is loaded with realistic forces, resulting in a proper assembly to study interaction effects. The dynamic response is obtained at any coordinate by the modal superposition method, considering a finite number of modes. Differential equations of the resulting coupled problem are solved using proper numerical techniques (constant time step Runge-Kutta method). Solutions obtained for different scenarios (depending on the dimensions and boundary conditions of the plate and on the mass of the pedestrian with respect to the mass of the floor) are presented and compared with the response of the structure when the pedestrian load is treated as a moving force, as suggested in some design guidelines.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge to the partial support through Research Projects BIA2011-28493 and BIA2014-59321 (Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spanish Government).
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Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 143 • Issue 9 • September 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 17, 2016
Accepted: Mar 28, 2017
Published online: Jul 13, 2017
Published in print: Sep 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Dec 13, 2017
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