Numerieke en experimentele studie van trillingen van voetgangersbruggen geïnduceerd door hardlopen

Contemporary civil engineering structures often feature slender designs driven by economic and aesthetic considerations. Their low stiffness-to-mass ratio results in multiple natural frequencies below 10 Hz, making them sensitive to low-frequency loads. Human activities, such as walking and running, produce near-periodic forces within this range. As vibration comfort typically governs serviceability before structural integrity is at risk, vibration serviceability has become a primary design criterion. Current design provisions for footbridges mainly consider pedestrian streams, with running-induced vibrations largely overlooked due to a lack of validated load models. Existing models require experimental validation on vibrating platforms to capture human-structure interaction and to account for potential synchronization between runners, known as human-human interaction. Addressing this knowledge gap demands real-world data to characterize operational loading, including interaction effects. This doctoral research addresses this gap by investigating running-induced vibrations through human-structure and human-human interactions. Empirical measurements and vision-based tracking of runners were used to characterize induced loading and crowd dynamics under realistic conditions. Analysis demonstrated the importance of accounting for variability in pacing and interaction effects when assessing the structural response. The findings provide a fundamental for developing design procedures and serviceability criteria tailored to running-induced vibrations, offering a critical advancement in footbridge design practice.