Dynamic Model of a Structure Carrying Stationary Humans and Assessment of its Response to Walking Excitation

A flooring-system, e.g. a floor in a building, is excited dynamically when a person walks across the floor, and resonant excitation might bring structural vibrations to unacceptable levels. Stationary (non-moving) crowds of people might be present on the same floor and they will sense the floor vibrations, but they will also interact dynamically with the floor in a passive sense, thus altering the dynamic system excited to vibration by the walking person. Consequently, the vibration level of the floor is likely to depend on the presence and size of the stationary crowd. It is also known that different techniques (different parameters calculated from structural response time series) are proposed for assessing floor serviceability. The paper looks into the influence of the stationary crowd of people on the floor response to walking excitation and into the influence of the crowd on different parameters calculated from structural response time series for assessing the serviceability limit state. A numerical approach based on simulation of floor excitation is employed for the investigations, and the paper describes the study assumptions and the findings related to the influence of the presence a stationary crowd on the dynamic model of the flooring-system and on floor serviceability assessments.