1196

ARTICLE
Modeling of crowd load in vertical direction using biodynamic
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model for pedestrians crossing footbridges

Felipe Tavares da Silva, Halane Maria Braga Fernandes Brito, and Roberto Leal Pimentel

Abstract: In the analysis of vibration of footbridges in vertical direction, for crowd situations, there is evidence in the literature
that the whole effect of pedestrian action is not well modeled when applying current force-only models to represent such an
action. In these models, the action of each pedestrian is represented by a pulsating force applied on the structure. In this paper,
a crowd load model is proposed for sparse and dense crowds (with densities up to around 1.0 pedestrian/m2) in which biodynamic
models are added to represent the whole action of pedestrians. The focus of the investigation is on vibration effects in vertical
direction. Comparisons with measurements on a prototype footbridge were carried out and made it possible to identify
differences in the structural response when applying force-only and force-biodynamic models to represent the pedestrian action.
The latter (proposed) model resulted in a better agreement with the measurements.

Key words: pedestrian bridges, crowd load, vibration, biodynamic model.

Résumé : La littérature montre que l’effet complet de l’action des piétons dans l’analyse des vibrations verticales des passerelles
à piétons n’est pas bien modélisé lorsque l’on applique les modèles actuels uniquement de force pour représenter une telle
action. Dans ces modèles, l’action de chaque piéton est représentée par une force pulsatoire appliquée à la structure. Le présent
article propose un modèle de chargement de foule pour des foules éparses et denses (avec des densités pouvant atteindre environ
1,0 piéton/m2); des modèles biodynamiques ont été ajoutés pour représenter toute l’action des piétons. L’enquête L’étude porte
For personal use only.

principalement sur les effets des vibrations verticales. Des comparaisons à des mesures prises sur un prototype de passerelle à
piétons ont permis d’identifier les différences dans la réponse structurale lors de l’application des modèles de force seulement
et de force-biodynamique afin de représenter l’action des piétons. Ce dernier modèle (proposé) a montré une corrélation
supérieure aux mesures. [Traduit par la Rédaction]

Mots-clés : passerelles à piétons, charge d’une foule, vibration, modèle biodynamique.

Introduction
Vibration of footbridges due to human-induced loads has been
appointed as a design problem to be tackled. A compilation of case
reports of excessive vibration in footbridges (Pimentel et al. 2001)
indicated occurrence of vibration problems in vertical as well as
in lateral direction. As for the vertical direction, the analysis of
vibration performance have evolved from adopting load models
that employed a single pedestrian crossing the structure (Blanchard
et al. 1977; Rainer et al. 1988; Živanović et al. 2007; Tubino and
Piccardo 2008; Pimentel and Fernandes 2009) to models in which
a stream of pedestrians is taken into account (Barker and Mackenzie
2008; Charles 2008; Butz et al. 2008; Piccardo and Tubino 2009).
Milestone codes of practice in terms of vibration serviceability of
footbridges, such as the BS 5400 (1978) and Ontario code (1983),
were based on the action of a single pedestrian whereas recent
guidelines and codes, such as the one from the Service d'Études
Techniques des Routes et Autoroutes (SÉTRA) (2006) and the UK
National Annex to Eurocode 1 (UK NA to EN1) (2008), consider the
presence of several pedestrians simultaneously on the structure.
In all aforementioned codes of practice, the action of pedestri-
ans is considered as forces applied to the structure. However,
when the action of a stream of pedestrians is taken into account,
by disregarding the dynamics of the pedestrians, this procedure
may lead to responses that differ from the actual behavior of the
structure.
Indeed, being a structure designed for the conveyance of pedes-
trians, there is an interaction between a footbridge and the pedes-
trians crossing it since the latter vibrate together with the former.
Živanović et al. (2010) compared the responses obtained from sim-
ulations employing several force models available in the litera-
ture for modeling multiperson traffic in footbridges in vertical
direction to experimental data collected on two structures. In one
of the test footbridges, there was an overestimation of the re-
sponses from all simulations while compared to experimental
data. Živanović et al. (2010) considered as a possible explanation
that this could be a consequence of human-structure interaction
not accounted for in the simulations. They explored the strategy
of an arbitrary increase of damping of the system to account for
such an effect and pointed out a strong need for further research
on quantification of human-structure interaction.
There have also been reports of increases on damping and (or)
changes on the natural frequencies of structures when they are
occupied by standing people (Sachse et al. 2004; Butz et al. 2008) or
else due to a stream of pedestrians walking along (Barker and
Mackenzie 2008). References can be found in which spring-mass-
damper (SMD) models were employed to represent the dynamic
vertical behavior of a whole crowd standing (Sachse et al. 2004)

Received 16 December 2011. Accepted 14 July 2013.

F.T. da Silva and H.M.B.F. Brito. Postgraduate Research Programme in Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Paraíba, Campus Universitário,
sn 58051-900 João Pessoa-PB, Brazil.
R.L. Pimentel. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Paraíba, Campus Universitário, sn 58051-900 João Pessoa-PB,
Brazil.
Corresponding author: Roberto Leal Pimentel (e-mail: r.pimentel@uol.com.br).

Can. J. Civ. Eng. 40: 1196–1204 (2013) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjce-2011-0587 Published at www.nrcresearchpress.com/cjce on 16 July 2013.
 da Silva et al.
or the human vertical dynamics in situations such as standing
(ISO 5982 1981; Matsumoto and Griffin 2003), walking (Miyamori
et al. 2001; Kim et al. 2008; Caprani et al. 2011) or running (Nigg
and Liu 1999). Different values for the biodynamic parameters of
the models were reported according to the type of locomotion.
The works related to biodynamic models for walking are worth
discussing in more details.
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Miyamori et al. (2001) proposed a three-degree of freedom
(3-DOF) biodynamic model to represent a walking pedestrian in
the vertical direction. Some parameters of their model were ob-
tained through the response of a footbridge crossed by a single
pedestrian. The application of the model to represent crowd ac-
tion as well as the differences between force-only and biodynamic
models for such action were not discussed in their paper.
Kim et al. (2008) proposed a 2-DOF model aiming to represent
the dynamics of the human body in the vertical direction while
walking. However, the parameters of their biodynamic model
were obtained from the ISO 5982 code (1981), which is applicable
to standing people. In addition, results obtained by applying their
model for crowds crossing footbridges were not checked against
experimental data.
Caprani et al. (2011) proposed a SMD model to represent each
pedestrian crossing the structure in addition to a force model for
the same pedestrian. In the absence of own experimental data to
obtain the parameters of the SMD model, they adopted values for
the spring stiffness and damping coefficient taken from other
studies and, as for the mass, the full mass of the pedestrian was
considered in the SMD model. Simulations were carried out to
evaluate the repercussion of changes in such parameters, by com-
For personal use only.
paring the response of a beam-like simply supported footbridge
crossed by a single pedestrian, the latter being represented as a
SMD model and also as a force-only model. The responses away
from resonance were similar, the difference being more remark-
able close to resonance. In this case, the response using the SMD
model was much reduced, however depending on the values ad-
opted for the parameters of the model.
Simulations were also carried out by Caprani et al. (2011) to
evaluate the response for crowd action. To do that, they adopted a
substitute force model to represent the SMD action of each
pedestrian, by multiplying the expression of the force due to each
pedestrian (from a force-only model) by a coefficient. This coeffi-
cient, in turn, was obtained from the ratio between the responses
of the beam-like simply supported footbridge when crossed by a
single pedestrian represented as a SMD model and as a force-only
model. However, since the action of a SMD model would depend
on the level of vibration of the structure being investigated,
use of coefficients obtained for a specific condition would lack
generality.
Aiming to overcome the limitation of the force-only model to
represent the pedestrian action, particularly in crowd situations,
and also to provide further insight into pedestrian–structure in-
teraction, a crowd load model is proposed in this paper, making
use of a biodynamic model to represent the action of each pedes-
trian.
In a previous paper, Silva and Pimentel (2011) proposed a single
degree of freedom (SDOF) biodynamic model to represent the
dynamics of a walking pedestrian in vertical direction. This model
is employed in this paper to construct the crowd load model. The
adequacy of this biodynamic model and the procedure in which
the load was applied was checked by comparing the numerical
results obtained using this model and also using a force-only
model, with measurements on a prototype footbridge, for pedes-
trian densities up to 0.9 pedestrians/m2.
It is expected that, by considering the interaction between pe-
destrians and structure, a reduction of the response is going to
occur, due to the fact the human body is a highly damped system.
The strategy adopted by Živanović et al. (2010) of increasing the
damping of the system to match results from crowd force models
1197
Fig. 1. Single degree of freedom models for walking.
to measurements points out in this direction. This means that,
from a design point of view, consideration of the interaction leads
to a more realistic model of the phenomenon. However, the inter-
action is accounted for by modeling the pedestrians and structure
altogether. It will be shown that this will imply in better agree-
ment with experimental results.
Biodynamic model for a walking pedestrian
The SDOF model employed to represent a walking pedestrian in
the vertical direction was proposed by Silva and Pimentel (2011).
Herein, more details are provided and the features of the model
related to the development of the crowd load model are high-
lighted.
In essence, the whole body of a walking person was conceived as
a SDOF model (Fig. 1). In this figure, the left side represents a
model for walking on rigid surfaces whereas on the right side
there is a model for walking on vibrating surfaces. While walking,
the centre of gravity of the body presents an up and down oscilla-
tory motion (Inman et al. 1994). An oscillating force resulting from
this motion is applied to the ground. Obtaining such a force while
walking on rigid surfaces has been comprehensively researched
(Rainer and Pernica 1986; Pernica 1990; Kerr and Bishop 2001;
Brownjohn et al. 2004a; Sahnaci and Kasperski 2005). The model
consists of a modal mass m, a spring of elastic constant k and also
a viscous damper the constant of which is c. The dynamic param-
eters m, c, and k of the model do not have a direct relationship
with parts of the human body. Instead, such values were sought in
such a way that measured accelerations at waist level could be
reproduced by the model. As the contact between the pedestrian
and surface is always maintained, by isolating the pedestrian, the
equation that represents the motion of the centre of gravity of the
pedestrian is
(1) müt ⫹ cu̇t ⫹ kut ⫽ PGnd
In eq. (1), ut is the displacement of the degree of freedom with
respect to a fixed reference point, a dot on top of it indicating a
derivative with respect to time, and PGnd is the ground reaction
force while walking on a rigid surface. Such a force also varies
with time.
On the other hand, while walking on a vibrating surface (e.g.,
while crossing a footbridge), by assuming that the level of vibra-
tion is such that the biodynamic parameters of the model re-
mained reasonably unchanged, the equation to represent the
motion of the pedestrian is
(2) 
mü1t ⫹ c(u̇1t ⫺ u̇g) ⫹ k(u1t ⫺ ug) ⫽ PGnd
In eq. (2), ug is the displacement of the ground with respect to the
same fixed reference in which u1t is evaluated. The latter is the
displacement of the degree of freedom and is represented here by
a symbol different from that employed in eq. (1), to emphasize
that it is not interchangeable between the equations. It should be
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 1198 Can. J. Civ. Eng. Vol. 40, 2013

Table 1. Mean and standard deviation (SD) of pedestrian data and Fig. 2. Correlations of the biodynamic parameters: modal mass.
single degree of freedom parameters.
fp (Hz) M (kg) m (kg) c (N·s/m) k (N/m)
Mean 1.87 63.82 45.82 867.06 16684.66
SD 0.14 9.88 3.70 66.41 1765.29
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noted that the ground reaction force in the right hand side of the
equation may change when compared to the force while walking
on a rigid surface, due to potential changes in walking pattern.
A simplifying approach is to consider each pedestrian repre-
sented as a biodynamic model attached to the structure (that is, as
Fig. 3. Correlations of the biodynamic parameters: modal damping.
a SDOF moving oscillator vibrating together with the structure)
and simultaneously apply on the structure the force PGnd obtained
from walking on rigid surfaces. This is the same of considering the
right hand sides of eqs. (1) and (2) as being equal. The validity of
this simplification is checked by comparing results from simula-
tions and measurements on a vibrating structure.
The first step, however, is obtaining the biodynamic parameters
of the model. They were obtained by solving a system of three
nonlinear equations (eq. (3)), which is the expression of the acce-
lerance frequency response function of a SDOF model described
by eq. (1). Equation (3) represents the stationary response and is
consistent with the condition of steady walking adopted in the
tests to obtain the biodynamic parameters.

␻i2PGnd0(␻i) Fig. 4. Correlations of the biodynamic parameters: modal stiffness.

(3) A(␻i) ⫽
ⱍk ⫺ ⱍ
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␻i2m ⫹ j␻ic

In eq. (3), the parameters m, c, and k are the unknowns, j is the

square root of (−1), and PGnd0(␻i) and A(␻i) are the input values,
being respectively the amplitudes of the harmonic components of
the ground reaction force and of the measured acceleration at
waist level for the frequency ␻i, with i varying from 1 to 3. The
force was represented by means of a Fourier series and, for its
main first three harmonic components, expressions for the dy-
namic load factors proposed by Kerr and Bishop (2001) were ad-
opted, as discussed later on (eqs. (6)). It should be noted that only
the first three harmonic components of force and acceleration
were employed in the formulation since these were the most
prominent components in the expression of the force and mea-
sured accelerations at waist level, respectively.
Twenty test subjects took part in the experimental campaign,
being eleven men and nine women. Each test subject walked at
free will along a rigid surface, with an accelerometer attached at
waist level. The mean pacing rate fp observed was 1.87 Hz, which is
in agreement with results for free walking presented in the liter-
ature (Pachi and Ji 2005). Mean and standard deviations (SD) of the
biodynamic parameters obtained are presented in Table 1, to-
gether with related data. It can be noticed that the modal mass m
is a fraction of the total body mass M, which means that only a
fraction of the body mass would be considered to provide the
inertia forces generated by a walking pedestrian when using such
a model. It is also worth mentioning that the mass, damping, and
stiffness values obtained differed from the values for SDOF biody-
namic models proposed in the literature for standing people
(Matsumoto and Griffin 2003).
A way to model the walking pedestrians would be to randomly
assign independent values for the parameters m, c, and k of each
pedestrian, for example, by picking values in a range of two SDs
around the mean values presented in Table 1. However, it was
observed that a correlation existed among the parameters of the
model. The strongest correlations are shown in Figs. 2 to 4. Ex-
pressions were then proposed (Silva and Pimentel 2011) for the
biodynamic parameters so as to take into account such correla-
tions (see the curves in Figs. 2 to 4) and enabling the parameters to
be obtained as a function of the total body mass M and pacing rate
fp. These expressions are given by
m ⫽ 97.082 ⫹ 0.275M ⫺ 37.518 fp (kg)
(4) c ⫽ 29.041 m0.883 (Ns/m)
k ⫽ 30351.744 ⫺ 50.261 c ⫹ 0.035 c2 (N/m)
In Figs. 2 to 4, the parameters p-value and R2 are statistical
metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of the fitting of data by the
regression function. The p-value is a measure of the similarity
between the regression function and the data, through a hypoth-
esis test. The p-value is related to the significance of the null
hypothesis, that is, if the p-value has low values, typically lower
than 0.05 (Triola 2008), the null hypothesis can be rejected and it
can be concluded that the data are well fitted by the function. On
the other hand, R2 is a measure of the errors of the fitting, being
related to the proportion of the variation of the data points that can
be explained (predicted) by the fitting; R2 values close to 1 indicate
a function that better fits the data points. As can be seen from the
values obtained in Figs. 2 to 4, the strongest fit obtained was for
the relation between modal damping and modal mass.
Regarding Figs. 3 and 4, it can be seen that the R2 slightly fa-
vours the selection of the nonlinear functions for both cases

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 da Silva et al. 1199

(eq. (4)), whereas the p-value slightly favours the linear relation in Fig. 5. Test structure.
Fig. 4. However, differences among the values are small and, in
general, the nonlinear relations resulted in better fit or else it is
not conclusive to replace them by linear fits. If anything, expres-
sions for the linear fits are presented below as modeling alterna-
tives:
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c ⫽ 107.455 ⫹ 16.208 m (Ns/m)

(5)
k ⫽ 5758.441 ⫹ 11.103 c (N/m)

Values for M (in kg) and fp (in Hz) were then randomly assigned
according to the respective distribution each of these parameters
followed (e.g., see Table 1) and, from these, values for the biody-
namic parameters of each pedestrian were obtained by applying
eq. (4).

Crowd model
The proposed crowd model is based on non-syncronized move-
ment of pedestrians, as observed in the experimental campaign
(see the description of the tests). Although synchronization has
been observed in some footbridges prone to vibrate excessively in
the lateral direction (Fujino et al. 1993; Dallard et al. 2001; Danbon
and Grillaud 2005), studies to verify whether this phenomenon
occurs for footbridges prone to vibrate excessively in the vertical
direction are scarce. Indeed, the few experimental results avail- conducted to obtain the mode shapes of the structure in the ver-
able from tests in long span footbridges evidenced no synchroni- tical direction (Brasiliano et al. 2007).
zation in the vertical direction, at least for the vibration level A video camera was placed close to one of the footbridge
observed in the reported structures (Brownjohn et al. 2004b; supports and aligned in relation to its longitudinal axis. It was
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Charles and Bui 2005; Macdonald 2008).
After conceiving the biodynamic model for a walking pedes-
trian, there comes the task of coupling it with the model of the
structure. The strategy adopted was to apply the force as obtained
from walking in a rigid surface and add the biodynamic models to
the model of the structure, as previously discussed. By vibrating
together with the structure, the biodynamic models will account
for the changes in the dynamics of the system.
Two approaches were adopted to add the biodynamic models.
In the first one, called here ‘force and moving biodynamic mod-
els’, each biodynamic model moves along the structure together
with the respective applied force. In this case, the analysis is non-
linear because the elements of the vibrating system (in this case,
the biodynamic models) are changing positions during the analy-
sis. The second approach consists of moving only the forces and
evenly distribute the fixed biodynamic models along the struc-
ture, according to a given pedestrian density. This second ap-
proach is more easily implemented in terms of adapting existing
algorithms that deal with moving force problems so as to include
fixed biodynamic models. This approach is called here ‘force and
fixed biodynamic models’ and would also benefit the computa-
tional analysis since the matrices of the system, consisting of
structure plus biodynamic models, would not change over time
and the analysis would remain linear. Both approaches were
checked against experimental results.
Test structure and measurements
The prototype footbridge available for this study (Fig. 5) had a
natural frequency of approximately 4 Hz, being within the range
of frequencies of the second harmonic of the pedestrian load for a
condition of fast walk. This footbridge had a deck consisting of a
slab 10 cm thick and 1.80 m wide supported by two beams, with
a theoretical span of 11.30 m (Fig. 6).
Through impacts at one quarter of the span and at midspan and
measuring the response with an accelerometer, the first vertical
vibration mode was identified, having a natural frequency of 4.27 Hz.
The respective damping ratio was obtained from free decay tests,
presenting a mean value of 1%. Full-scale modal tests were also
then possible to identify some of the characteristics of the pedes-
trian flows. The pedestrian densities investigated were 0.3, 0.7,
and 0.9 pedestrians/m2, in a condition of steady flow. With
regard to the number of pedestrians simultaneously on the
footbridge at a time for each density, they were respectively 5, 11,
and 15 pedestrians. A total of 12 test subjects took part in the test
for the density of 0.3 pedestrians/m2, 31 test subjects for the den-
sity of 0.7 pedestrians/m2, and 48 test subjects for the density of
0.9 pedestrians/m2. To assure a continuous stream of pedestrians
crossing the structure, the participants walked along a closed
path, as evidenced in Fig. 5.
All pedestrians walked at free will. From the processing of im-
ages, which involved observing the variation of phase angles be-
tween lateral movements of pairs of pedestrians (Araújo et al.
2009), no signs of synchronization among pedestrians were ob-
served for the densities investigated. By processing the video im-
ages, it was also possible to obtain the mean and SD of the pacing
rates of the pedestrians for each density. The mean pacing rate
reduced from 1.9 Hz for the density of 0.3 pedestrians/m2 to
1.76 Hz for the density of 0.9 pedestrians/m2. More details about
the processing of images and evaluation of synchronization can
be found elsewhere (Araújo et al. 2009).
The pedestrians involved in these tests were mostly university
students wearing rubber sole shoes, in conformity with the test
campaign in which the parameters of the biodynamic model
were obtained. The acceleration time response of the structure
was measured at midspan by an Endevco accelerometer model
7754-A, with a sensitivity of 1 V/g. For each density, ten signals of
approximately 40 s each were acquired. Root mean square (RMS)
acceleration was calculated for each acquired signal and the
Shapiro–Wilk test (Shapiro and Wilk 1965) was applied to confirm
that the ten samples of RMS accelerations followed a normal dis-
tribution. In sequence and adopting the t-distribution, it was ver-
ified that the number of samples was such that a margin of error
of 10% for the mean RMS acceleration was attained.
The signals were acquired by the spectrum analyser Data Phys-
ics SignalCalc and each signal had a total of 4096 points. A typical
recorded signal is shown in Fig. 7. The first 10 s of each signal were
discarded so as to consider only the part of the signals in which

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 1200 Can. J. Civ. Eng. Vol. 40, 2013

Fig. 6. Footbridge plan (dimensions in centimetres).

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Fig. 7. Typical time history signal at mid-span of the footbridge. Table 2. Results of root mean square (RMS) accelerations at midspan.
Test aRMS03 (m/s2) aRMS07 (m/s2) aRMS09 (m/s2)
1 0.1347 0.0755 0.0931
2 0.1323 0.0744 0.1010
3 0.0921 0.0855 0.1212
4 0.1475 0.0886 0.0839
5 0.1008 0.0804 0.1000
6 0.1245 0.0989 0.0953
7 0.1309 0.0850 0.0954
8 0.0939 0.0924 0.0883
9 0.1098 0.0998 0.0965
10 0.0979 0.0731 0.1078
Mean 0.1164 0.0854 0.0983
the flow was steady. The RMS accelerations obtained from each SD 0.0199 0.0097 0.0104
measured signal are presented in Table 2 for each density, to-
gether with the respective mean and SDs.
It can be observed from Table 2 that the mean RMS acceleration With regard to the models representing the pedestrian action,
did not increase steadily with the increasing number of people on in the first model, the force applied by the crowd was considered
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the footbridge at a time, as it would be expected when adopting as moving harmonic point loads traveling across the structure at
crowd load models in which only forces are considered to repre- a speed proportional to the respective pedestrian pacing rate. The
sent the pedestrian action (SÉTRA 2006, UK NA to EN1 2008). expressions defining the force applied by each pedestrian and the
respective speed are shown in eqs. (6)–(8).
Numerical models: structure and crowd
To investigate the effects of force-only and force-biodynamic
models to represent the action of pedestrians in crowd conditions,
(6) F(t) ⫽ G 兺 ␣ sin (2␲if t ⫺ ␾ )
i
i p i

a finite element (FE) model was developed for the test footbridge,
using beam elements.
This FE model was implemented using the computer program
ANSYS (2010). A limitation of the finite element analysis software
implied that each biodynamic model should be added only on
nodes of the structure. Therefore, for the case of the force and
moving biodynamic models, each biodynamic model moved from
node to node of the FE model, in time with the movement of the
respective applied force. As for the force, it moved continuously
and, for each position it stays within a beam element, equivalent
nodal forces were determined. This can be visualized in the detail
of Fig. 8 for a single pedestrian, in which PA and PB indicates
equivalent nodal forces.
With regard to the modeling of the force and fixed biodynamic
models, the force again moves continuously along the span while
the biodynamic models remain stationary at nodes of the FE model,
being evenly distributed along the span. The FE model should
have a number of nodes that makes it possible to place the biody-
namic models in distinct nodes of the FE model even in the case of
the most crowded analysis (pedestrian density of 0.9 ped/m2), in
which 15 people at a time were at the footbridge. Therefore, a total
of 16 beam elements were adopted, resulting in an element size of
0.7063 m.
The flexural stiffness EI and elastic constant to rotation KSUP at
the supports were obtained from correlation between the FE model
and the test results, having values of 57 MNm2 and 4300 kNm/rad,
respectively. The mass per unit length mL of the footbridge, in
turn, had a value of 620.65 kg/m and was obtained from the prop-
erties of the materials employed to build the structure. The cali-
brated FE model presented a fundamental frequency of 4.28 Hz
and correlated well with the measurements, particularly for the
mode of interest.
␣1(fp) ⫽ ⫺0.27 fp3 ⫹ 1.32 fp2 ⫺ 1.76 fp ⫹ 0.76
(7) ␣2 ⫽ 0.07
␣3 ⫽ 0.06
(8) v ⫽ 0.9 fp
In eqs. (6)–(8), F(t) is the harmonic point force that represents the
fluctuating part of the load applied by a pedestrian on the surface,
G is the pedestrian weight, ␣i is the dynamic load factor (DLF) of
the ith harmonic, t is time, ␾i is the phase angle between the ith
harmonic and the first, and v is the pedestrian speed. The expres-
sion adopted for the latter was that proposed in the former UK
code BS 5400 (1978), which was in agreement with what was ob-
served during the tests.
With regard to the DLFs, the ones adopted were proposed by
Kerr and Bishop (2001). The expression for the first DLF (␣1) was
taken as the lower bound among three expressions proposed by
those authors, the reason for this choice being related to the
characteristics of the group of test subjects, all of them using
rubber sole shoes and walking mostly in a relaxed way. As for the
other two DLFs, a great dispersion on the values was pointed out
by Kerr and Bishop (2001). The values adopted here are somewhat
smaller than other proposals in the literature, so as to follow the
line of thought adopted in the choice of the expression for the
first DLF. As a comparison, a selection of values for DLFs from
several studies can be found elsewhere (Živanović et al. 2005).
Each pedestrian in a flow was assigned a pacing rate randomly
selected and following a normal distribution, according to the
respective mean and SD obtained from the tests, for the respective
density. As for the mass, it was distributed according to the mean

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 da Silva et al.
Fig. 8. Illustration of the crowd load model.
Can. J. Civ. Eng. Downloaded from cdnsciencepub.com by Bangladesh Univ of Engineering & Technol - BUET (PERI) on 05/01/22
and SD presented in Table 1. The phase angles ␾ among the har-
monics of the pedestrian load (eq. (6)) were randomly assigned,
with values following a uniform distribution and varying from –␲
to +␲.
A group of point loads was conceived to provide a continuous
pedestrian flow crossing the structure, during a time compatible
to that employed in the experimental campaign. This is described
in the following stages and the test case of 0.3 pedestrians/m2 is
taken to exemplify the procedure (see also Fig. 8):
(a) first, the extension of the group of point loads is determined.
Such an extension is equal to the distance that the pedestrian
For personal use only.
at the end of the queue has to cover until leaving the foot-
bridge. Using the pedestrian mean speed of the test plus the
duration of the measured signal (30 s of stationary flow, dis-
regarding the time to cross the footbridge), the extension of
the group of point loads is obtained by multiplying the mean
speed by 30 s and adding to this result the span length of the
footbridge. For instance, for the test case of the density of
0.3 pedestrians/m2, the mean pacing rate was 1.90 Hz (Araújo
et al. 2009) and the mean speed was 0.9 times this pacing rate
(eq. (8)); the extension obtained was 62.6 m.
(b) the number of pedestrians (point loads) placed along the
aforementioned extension is calculated in such a way to ob-
tain a pedestrian density similar to that of the respective den-
sity of the test. Taking the same example, that is, the density
of 0.3 pedestrians/m2, five pedestrians were on the footbridge
at a time, leading to a mean distance of approximately 2.26 m
among them. Then, the number of 28 pedestrians in the
queue is obtained by the ratio between the extension and the
mean distance among pedestrians.
(c) finally, for each run (simulation), the position of each load
(pedestrian) in the queue is randomly defined by a value be-
tween zero and the calculated extension, using an uniform
distribution. It should be noted that, due to the different pac-
ing rates (and so the different speed each load moves, see
eq. (8)), the distances among the loads do not remain constant
during each run and also among runs. Each run, thus, pro-
duced different accelerations, requiring repetition for statis-
tical significance.
With regard to the inclusion of the biodynamic models, they
were placed on nodes of the FE model and the group of moving
point loads was also applied as previously described. In the case of
the force and moving biodynamic models, each biodynamic
model was assigned a value of the body mass M and pacing rate fp
according to the adopted distribution of these parameters and
moved together with the force, from node to node of the FE
model. In the case of the fixed biodynamic models, since they do
not move together with the forces, the values of the body mass M
and pacing rate fp of the first pedestrians in the group of point
1201
Table 3. Sample sizes employed.
Pedestrian density
(ped/m2)
Data set 0.3 0.7 0.9
measured 10 10 7
Force-only model 29 26 79
Force and fixed biodynamic model 11 12 72
Force and moving biodynamic model 15 15 15
loads were employed, in a quantity equal to number of pedestri-
ans at a time on the footbridge. For a given pair of values of M and
fp, the parameters of the biodynamic models were obtained by
applying eq. (4).
The Newmark method was employed to solve the equation of
motion and the following values of the parameters of the method
were adopted to provide unconditional stability: ␦ as 0.50 and ␣ as
0.25. In addition, the time step of the analysis was 0.0025 s, being
approximately 1/100 of the fundamental period of vibration, so as
to obtain accuracy for the solution (Bathe 1996).
Comparison between measurements and
simulations
The results from the simulations presented more variability
than the respective measurements and therefore the number of
samples differed from case to case. This possibly had to do with
the application of the group of point loads, which may present
much variability than the actual situation observed during the
tests. However, the same number of pedestrians at a time was at
the footbridge in both sets of results (measurements and simula-
tions) and the same duration of analysis was adopted. In addition,
consistency was observed when comparing the sets of results of
different densities. Therefore, the differences in variability were
considered a minor effect and the final number of samples ad-
opted in each test or simulation is presented in Table 3, being
defined to provide statistical significance for the respective mean
value of each set. Still regarding the number of samples, some
fluctuation is observed and this was because: (a) data from each set
was reviewed to discard outliers, according to Triola (2008); and
(b) the number of samples should also be such that hypotheses
tests confirm that differences in mean values were due to differ-
ences in modeling the load.
Mean RMS acceleration and respective SDs for each analysis are
presented in Table 4, in which the measured results are shown
again to simplify the comparison with results from the simula-
tions. For the density of 0.9 pedestrians/m2, three samples within
the set of the measurements were discarded because they were
found to be outliers. This is why the mean and SD for this density
Published by NRC Research Press
 1202
Table 4. Mean root mean square acceleration and standard deviation (SD) from measured and
simulated results.
Measured Force-only
(m/s2) model (m/s2)
Density
Can. J. Civ. Eng. Downloaded from cdnsciencepub.com by Bangladesh Univ of Engineering & Technol - BUET (PERI) on 05/01/22
(ped/m2) Mean SD Mean SD
0.3 0.1164 0.0199 0.1397 0.0355
0.7 0.0854 0.0097 0.1130 0.0191
0.9 0.0984 0.0050 0.1122 0.0211
Fig. 9. Mean spectra for a density of 0.3 pedestrians/m2.
For personal use only.
differed between the results presented in Table 4 to the respective
results presented in Table 2.
It can be seen in Table 4 that the results of the force-biodynamic
models (both moving and fixed) are in closer agreement with the
measured results than the results from the force-only model. In
addition, the results of the force-biodynamic models followed the
trend of variation of mean RMS acceleration observed in the mea-
surements.
By taking the mean, SD, and number of samples of each set of
simulations, a hypothesis test (Triola 2008) was carried out for
each pair of mean accelerations of same density, to verify whether
there was sufficient evidence to state that the mean values from
each test were statistically distinct, that is, whether the mean
values were actually affected by the distinct models employed to
represent the pedestrian action. This was applied between the
force-only model and each of the force-biodynamic models. A sig-
nificance level of 0.05 was adopted and all tests confirmed that
there was sufficient evidence to support the claim that the choice
of model affected the value of mean accelerations.
However, more clarifying results were observed by compar-
ing the mean spectra (measurement and simulations), shown
in Figs. 9 to 11 for each density investigated. With regard to the
response around the first harmonic of the walking load, the ex-
perimental results were somehow lower than those respectively
obtained by both simulations. This is possibly due to some inade-
quacy of the DLFs adopted to represent the first harmonic of the
walking load in the force models or else a limitation of the force
model itself. Another observation was that the response did not
differ much between the simulated results for that range of fre-
quencies. This is consistent with the observations of Caprani et al.
Can. J. Civ. Eng. Vol. 40, 2013
Force and fixed Force and moving
biodynamic biodynamic
model (m/s2) model (m/s2)
Mean SD Mean SD
0.1060 0.0089 0.1154 0.0184
0.0920 0.0055 0.0906 0.0083
0.1053 0.0128 0.0918 0.0078
(2011), in which differences due to the dynamics of the body were
noticed only around the resonance of the system. Such a differ-
ence is related to the level of response of the structure for a
particular frequency, since structural motion is needed for the
effects of force-only and force-biodynamic models to differ be-
tween each other, which occurs to a greater extent around the
resonance of the system.
It can be seen in Figs. 9 to 11 that, around the resonance, the
measured and both force-biodynamic models response peaks oc-
curred at a frequency lower than that observed for the results of
the force-only model. The peak measured frequency continued to
decrease with the increase of the number of pedestrians simulta-
neously at the footbridge (that is, with density) and this effect
was followed by the results in which both force-biodynamic mod-
els were employed. However, this did not occur when applying
the force-only model to represent the action of the pedestrians.
The response of the footbridge excited by the force-only model
showed a sharp peak at a frequency of approximately 4.2 Hz for all
densities, which corresponded to the natural frequency of the
empty structure.
A reduction of the value of the peak when applying the force-
only model was observed as the density increased. This is due to
the fact that the mean pacing rate of pedestrians reduced with
increased density, and thus the pacing rates were getting farther
away from the natural frequency of the empty footbridge as the
density increased. Therefore, a consistent reduction of peak val-
ues were observed as the density increased.
It can also be observed that the responses obtained by employ-
ing both force-biodynamic models were more damped around the
resonance than the responses obtained by employing the force-
Published by NRC Research Press
 da Silva et al.
Fig. 10. Mean spectra for a density of 0.7 pedestrians/m2.
Can. J. Civ. Eng. Downloaded from cdnsciencepub.com by Bangladesh Univ of Engineering & Technol - BUET (PERI) on 05/01/22
Fig. 11. Mean spectra for a density of 0.9 pedestrians/m2.
For personal use only.
only model, as the former presented peaks of lesser magnitude
than the latter. In other words, an increase in damping due to the
presence of pedestrians on the structure occurred and this is ob-
served only when adopting the force-biodynamic models to rep-
resent the pedestrian action.
Finally, a comparison between the results from the moving and
fixed biodynamic models showed that the latter can also be rea-
sonably employed to represent the effects of reduction on natural
frequency and increase on damping.
Conclusions
In this paper a crowd load model is proposed to represent the
action of pedestrians walking along a footbridge, applicable to
pedestrian densities up to approximately 1.0 pedestrian/m2. This
is thought as a step further in modeling the action of pedestrians
on footbridges, while comparing to force models adopted in cur-
rent codes of practice. In the proposed model, SDOF biodynamic
models are added to represent the action of pedestrians. Two
approaches were adopted in this task: one in which the biody-
namic models moved from node to node along the structure, and
1203
another in which a number of biodynamic models equal to the
number of pedestrians that were on the footbridge at a time were
added to the model of the structure, being evenly distributed
along the span in fixed positions. In addition, forces were applied
moving along the structure. The expression adopted to represent
such forces was taken from the literature, being obtained when
walking in rigid surfaces. The combination of such forces with
biodynamic models provided the net effect of a pedestrian walk-
ing in a vibrating surface.
A prototype footbridge was employed and pedestrian tests were
carried out, with densities ranging from 0.3 to 0.9 pedestrians/m2,
so as to check the proposed crowd model. By comparing the re-
sponses obtained from measurements with simulations employ-
ing the model, it was observed that the results with the added
biodynamic models were in better agreement with the measure-
ments than those results obtained representing the pedestrian
action by a model in which only forces moving along the structure
were applied. When including the biodynamic models as part of
the structural system, a reduction on the predominant frequency
Published by NRC Research Press
 1204
of vibration and an increase in damping were noticed, as evi-
denced in the literature and observed in the measurements.
Both approaches employing biodynamic models to represent
the pedestrian action, that is, with moving or fixed biodynamic
models, produced results in close agreement with the measure-
ments, the advantage in using the fixed biodynamic models being
the simplicity of a linear analysis and a much easier adaptation of
Can. J. Civ. Eng. Downloaded from cdnsciencepub.com by Bangladesh Univ of Engineering & Technol - BUET (PERI) on 05/01/22
existing moving force algorithms to include biodynamic models.
Beyond confirming that walking crowds contributed to change
in the dynamic properties of the system, the results also corrobo-
rated that the biodynamic model employed improved the model-
ing of the pedestrian action. Its inclusion made the results from
the simulations much closer to the measurements, thus avoiding
conservative estimates obtained when applying force-only models
to represent the action of pedestrians in crowd situations.
Acknowledgements
The first author acknowledges the financial support of CNPq –
Brazil, in terms of a scholarship to carry out his doctoral studies.
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