Assessment of pedestrian comfort and safety of footbridges in dynamic conditions: case study of a landmark arch footbridge

The objective of this paper is to present results of dynamic tests of an arch span of the footbridge in Wronki near Poznań in Poland and clearly summarize them. The investigated footbridge, with asymmetrical arch and the main span 90.0 m long, is an example of original architecture and interesting structural solutions. The research campaign included normal live loads and vandal actions to the footbridge. Normal live loads tests examined the influence of various kinds of the pedestrian activity on the footbridge’s behaviour as: walking, jogging or fast running. The pedestrian comfort was assessed in this type of schemes. Vandal type of excitation consisted of synchronized walking or running and rhythmical half-crouching. The main aim of the vandal live loads was to check structure’s safety and behaviour in the extreme dynamic conditions. The research was carried out in a large group of pedestrians – under a crowd of 40 volunteers.