Análise da resposta dinâmica de passarelas de pedestres considerando-se uma modelagem probabilística do caminhar humano.

Abstract

Nowadays, the pedestrian footbridges present greater slenderness and have been constructed with increasingly daring structures. This fact have generated very slender footbridges and consequently changed the serviceability and ultimate limit states associated to their design. Therefore, in this investigation, the walking loading was modelled based on a probabilistic approach, in order to describe the walking force in a given pedestrian population, aiming a human comfort analysis. The pedestrian walking dynamic action is modelled considering the random nature of the following parameters: pedestrian weight, step frequency and dynamic coefficients. The mathematical model is then applied to calculate the probability of having the structure dynamic response in a particular acceleration range. The investigated structural model is associated to a steel-concrete composite footbridge, built in the campus of the Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedics (INTO), at the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Based on the use of probabilistic methods, it was possible to determine whether the footbridge peak accelerations exceed or not the human comfort criteria established in the design standards and recommendations. The results have indicated that the peak accelerations calculated based on the deterministic methods may be overestimated in some design situations