Análise dinâmica e controle de vibrações de passarelas de pedestres submetidas ao caminhar humano.

Abstract

Steel and steel-concrete composite pedestrian footbridges are frequently subjected to dynamic actions with variable magnitudes due to the pedestrian crossing on the concrete deck. These dynamic actions can produce excessive vibrations and depending on their magnitude and intensity, these adverse effects can compromise the structural system s response and its reliability and may also lead to a reduction of the expected footbridge service life. The structural engineers experience and knowledge together with the use of newly developed materials and technologies have produced steel-concrete composite daring footbridges. A direct consequence of this design trend is a considerable increase of structural vibrations. Based on this scenario, this dissertation aims to investigate the dynamic behaviour of three steel-concrete composite pedestrian footbridge submitted to human walking vibration, located at Rio de Janeiro. These structural systems are composed by steel structure and a concrete slab and are destined for pedestrian crossing. Computational models were developed adopting the usual mesh refinement techniques present in finite element method simulations using ANSYS software. These numerical models have enabled a complete dynamic evaluation of the investigated footbridges especially in terms of human comfort and its associated vibration serviceability limit states. The dynamic responses were obtained in terms of peak accelerations and were compared to the limiting values proposed by authors and design standards. The peak acceleration values found in the present investigation indicated that the analysed footbridges have presented problems related to human comfort. Considering that it was detected that these structures could reach high vibration levels that might compromise the footbridge user s comfort, it was proposed a structural control system in order to reduce the excessive vibrations. Thus, an investigation was performed based on some structural control alternatives for attenuating excessive vibrations using tuned mass damper (TMD) systems.