Analysis of the vibration levels of a slender footbridge measured by a continuous dynamic monitoring system

Abstract

This paper is related to the work involving the numerical and experimental dynamic analysis of a very flexible pedestrian bridge located in Porto. Given the high level of vibrations reported by the users of that structure, the Laboratory of Vibrations and Structural Monitoring (www.fe.up.pt/vibest) from Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto (FEUP) became interested in this case, following the previous work of this research group in this area of Civil Engineering. In a first stage, the structure is described and the identified dynamic properties are listed. Then, experimental and numerical simulations of several scenarios of pedestrian loads exciting the bridge are presented. Given the "lively" behavior of the structure, it was decided to install a dynamic monitoring system in order to characterize the effective levels of vibration experienced by that structure during long periods of time. The results of the dynamic monitoring are exposed in this paper, which gives reason to the actual existence of complaints from pedestrians.