Identification of mass–spring–damper model of walking humans

Interaction of walking people with vibrating structures is known to be an important yet challenging phenomenon to simulate. Despite of its considerable effects on the structural response, no properly formulated and experimentally verified model currently exists to simulate this interaction in the vertical direction. This work uses a single-degree-of-freedom mass–spring–damper model of a walking human to simulate its interaction with a vibrating structure. Extensive frequency response function measurements were performed on a test structure that was occupied by more than a hundred test subjects walking in various group sizes and at different times in 23 tests. The identified modal properties of the occupied structure were used in three different identification procedures to estimate the parameters of the walking human model. A discrete model of human–structure system was used to simulate interaction of each walking person with the structure. The analysis identified the range of 2.75–3.00 Hz for the natural frequency and 27.5%–30% for the damping ratio of the model of a walking human, having constant mass of 70 kg. The extent of the experimental data and the measurement details, diversity of loading scenarios and consistency of the results of the different identification procedures, provided high level of confidence on the suggested parameters for the single-degree-of-freedom walking human model.UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

The influence of pre-existing vibrations on the dynamic response of medium span bridges

Critical static bridge loading scenarios are often expressed in terms of the number of vehicles that are present on the bridge at the time of occurrence of maximum lifetime load effect. For example, 1-truck, 2-truck, 3-truck or 4-truck events usually govern the critical static loading cases in short and medium span bridges. However, the dynamic increment of load effect associated with these maximum static events may be assessed inaccurately if it is calculated in isolation of the rest of the traffic flow. In other words, a heavy vehicle preceding a critical loading case causes the bridge initial conditions of displacement and acceleration to be non zero when the critical combination of traffic arrives on the bridge. Failure to consider these pre-existing vibrations will result in inaccurate estimation of dynamic amplification. This paper explores these dynamic effects and, using statistical analyses outlines the relative importance of pre-existing vibrations in the assessment of total traffic load effects.Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and TechnologyOther funderIRCSETThe European 6th Framework Project ARCHES (Assessment and Rehabilitation of Central European Highway Structures)ti, ke - AS 04/11/201

Identification of mass-spring-damper model of walking humans

Interaction of walking people with structures is known to be an important yet challenging when simulating vertical response of the structure due to walking excitation. Despite of its critical effects on structural response, no properly formulated and experimentally verified model exist to simulate effects of walking pedestrians on structures. In this work, a set of modal tests based on frequency response function (FRF) are done on a test structure with people walking in different loading scenarios. The occupied structure modal parameters found in these tests are used an identification procedure where 'reverse engineering' method is used to find parameters of walking individual's single-degree-of-freedom mass-spring-damper model. A discrete model of human-structure system is used to simulate independent interaction of each walking person with structure. The analysis results suggest the ranges of 2.75-3.00 Hz and 27.5 %-30% for natural frequency and damping ratio of SDOF walking human model respectively

A review of probabilistic methods of assessment of load effects in bridges

This paper reviews a range of statistical approaches to illustrate the influence of data quality and quantity on the probabilistic modelling of traffic load effects. It also aims to demonstrate the importance of long-run simulations in calculating characteristic traffic load effects. The popular methods of Peaks Over Threshold and Generalised Extreme Value are considered but also other methods including the Box-Cox approach, fitting to a Normal distribution and the Rice formula. For these five methods, curves are fitted to the tails of the daily maximum data. Bayesian Updating and Predictive Likelihood are also assessed, which require the entire data for fittings. The accuracy of each method in calculating 75-year characteristic values and probability of failure, using different quantities of data, is assessed. The nature of the problem is first introduced by a simple numerical example with a known theoretical answer. It is then extended to more realistic problems, where long-run simulations are used to provide benchmark results, against which each method is compared. Increasing the number of data in the sample results in higher accuracy of approximations but it is not able to completely eliminate the uncertainty associated with the extrapolation. Results also show that the accuracy of estimations of characteristic value and probabilities of failure are more a function of data quality than extrapolation technique. This highlights the importance of long-run simulations as a means of reducing the errors associated with the extrapolation process. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd

Enhancement factors for the vertical response of footbridges subjected to stochastic crowd loading

The vertical acceleration response of a hypothetical footbridge is predicted for a sample of single pedestrians and a crowd of pedestrians using a probabilistic approach. This approach uses statistical distributions to account for the fact that pedestrian parameters are not identical for all pedestrians. Enhancement factors are proposed for predicting the response due to a crowd based on the predicted accelerations of a single pedestrian. The significant contribution of this work is the generation of response curves identifying enhancement factors for a range of crowd densities and synchronization levels.Deposited by bulk impor

Monte Carlo simulation of extreme traffic loading on short and medium span bridges

The accurate estimation of site-specific lifetime extreme traffic load effects is an important element in the cost-effective assessment of bridges. A common approach is to use statistical distributions derived from weigh-in-motion measurements as the basis for Monte Carlo simulation of traffic loading. However, results are highly sensitive to the assumptions made, not just with regard to vehicle weights but also to axle configurations and gaps between vehicles. This paper presents a comprehensive model for Monte Carlo simulation of bridge loading for free-flowing traffic and shows how the model matches results from measurements on five European highways. The model has been optimised to allow the simulation of many years of traffic and this greatly reduces the variance in calculating estimates for lifetime loading from the model. The approach described here does not remove the uncertainty inherent in estimating lifetime maximum loading from data collected over relatively short time periods.Deposited by bulk impor