Serviceability assessment of the Góis footbridge using vibration monitoring

Abstract

Footbridges are structures that may experience vibration amplification problems caused by pedestrian and/or wind actions. Design codes deal with these phenomena limiting the natural frequencies and the maximum accelerations expected. Aiming at taking into consideration these dynamic phenomena, current procedures to evaluate the structural performance of light-weight bridges based on experimental dynamic analysis are evaluated in this study. To achieve this, the dynamic response of three pedestrians walking, running and jumping was obtained. Maximum comfort limits of dynamic responses were then determined. The results indicate that codes could overestimate the level of vibration in this kind of footbridge.