Structural health monitoring of grandstands: A review

Abstract

This article is a state of the art about Grandstands. The Grandstands are slender structures designed to accommodate a large number of people, which are specially under the actions of wind and the human-structure interaction. Over the years, it has been discuss of this topic, although still the number of publications still remain low. The human-structure interaction is a complex issue, where the loads may have different behaviours, depending many factors, including: type of audience (active or passive), public behaviour (jumping, walking, running, clapping, vandal loads), type of event (sports, concerts, meeting), position and posture of the individual, even influences the type of seat (with or without back, stiffness). However, the structure will behave differently when empty or fully occupied. Another load to consider is the wind, especially when the structure has a roof, screens, large-scale advertising, etc. These two types of loads can interact together, which implies an increase in the normal number of load combinations to consider. There are biomechanical models of human behaviour, used for design these types of structures. In addition, there are mathematical models to simulate the behaviour of the Grandstands by numerical methods. In recent years, all these models are throwing good results, against laboratory tests performed. It has also been monitored real Grandstands. This paper compiles all existing information on this topic.