Lateral loads applied by pedestrians at normal walking velocities

Abstract

The issue of horizontal loading from pedestrians has received increased attention from bridge designers and researchers in the past decade, primarily due to notable instances of excessive vibration of structures subjected to this form of excitation. Nonetheless there is a scarcity of reliable information on the magnitude and nature of this type of loading. The authors have carried out over 100 walking trials on 27 healthy adult participants walking at normal velocities on a rigid walkway mounted with a force plate. Subject data, pertinent tempro-spatial parameters of gait, walking velocity and pacing frequency are presented for each participant. Additionally, the lateral forces recorded during these tests are presented and analysed. A simplistic force function, based on the fundamental frequency of the applied excitation force, which may approximate the actual load applied by individual pedestrians is proposed. Further, this function is improved by consideration of the lateral force contribution at higher order harmonics of the fundamental frequency and relevant dynamic load factors and phase angles associated with the individual force functions are derived and optimised.