Damping effect of humans

Abstract

Passive humans (sitting or standing) might well be present on flooring-systems, footbridges or other structures that carry humans. An active crowd of people might generate structural vibrations, and these might be problematic. The passive crowd of people, however, will interact with the structural system and change its dynamic behaviour and its dynamic characteristics. When predicting structural vibrations it is not common to account for the passive crowd, but the paper will illustrate effects of the presence of a passive crowd on structural behaviour. Numerical and experimental results are presented and discussed. © The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc. 2012.