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Civil-Comp Proceedings
ISSN 1759-3433
CCP: 102
PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CIVIL, STRUCTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING COMPUTING
Edited by:
Paper 6

Modelling of the Dynamic Behaviour of Tubular Steel-Concrete Composite Footbridges subjected to Pedestrian-Induced Vibrations

G.L. Debona1, J.G. Santos da Silva2, A.C.C.F. Sieira2 and L.F. Costa Neves3

1Civil Engineering Post-graduate Programme, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2Structural Engineering Department, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
3Civil Engineering Department, University of Coimbra, Portual

Full Bibliographic Reference for this paper
G.L. Debona, J.G. Santos da Silva, A.C.C.F. Sieira, L.F. Costa Neves, "Modelling of the Dynamic Behaviour of Tubular Steel-Concrete Composite Footbridges subjected to Pedestrian-Induced Vibrations", in , (Editors), "Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Computing", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 6, 2013. doi:10.4203/ccp.102.6
Keywords: structural engineering, steel-concrete composite footbridges, finite element modelling, structural dynamics, dynamic analysis, human comfort.

Summary
The study of the dynamic effects caused by human activities over structural systems has gained a significant relevance during the last few years. On the other hand, some recently constructed pedestrian footbridges have been criticised by the public for their susceptibility to vibration. The main objective of the investigation, described in this paper, is to present the finite element modelling of the dynamic behaviour of tubular composite (steel-concrete) footbridges subject to human walking vibrations. The investigated structural system was based on a tubular composite (steel-concrete) footbridge, spanning 82.5 m. The structural model consists of tubular steel sections and a concrete slab. The investigation was carried out based on correlations between the experimental results related to the footbridge dynamic response and those obtained with finite element modelling. The finite element model enabled a complete dynamic evaluation of the tubular footbridge in terms of human comfort and its associated vibration serviceability limit states. The peak accelerations found in the present analysis indicated that the investigated tubular footbridge presented problems related with human comfort. Hence it was detected that this type of structure can reach high vibration levels that can compromise the footbridge users comfort and especially its safety.

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