Evaluation of Mass-Spring-Damper Models for Dynamic Interaction Between Walking Humans and Civil Structures

Abstract

Dynamic interaction between walking humans and vibrating flexible structures is one of the main challenges when simulating human-induced vibrations. To account for this interaction, several mass-spring-damper (MSD) models featuring different parameters have recently been proposed. This paper compares the performance of six experimentally-based MSD models of walking humans available in the literature. The simulated vibration responses of these models were compared with experimental measurements of four human test subjects walking on a full-scale flexible footbridge. Numerical simulations were carried out for two cases: non-interactive and interactive models using the above mentioned MSD models. Moreover, for each case two models of walking forces were used: previously measured continuous walking forces (from a treadmill test) for the corresponding test subjects and a deterministic walking force function from design guidelines. It is demonstrated that neglecting human-structure interaction in the simulations can result in a significant overestimation of the vibration responses. By utilising any of the interactive models of walking people, the accuracy of the vibration response predictions can be improved. The best performance was obtained when both the measured walking forces and the interactive model were used.