Design Response Spectra to Human Comfort Assessment of Pedestrian Footbriges

This research work aims to contribute to structural designers based on the development of a probabilistic approach for evaluating the dynamic structural response of pedestrian footbridges, with regard to excessive vibrations that may cause human discomfort. Based on the use of probabilistic methods, it becomes possible to determine the probability of the structure's peak acceleration values exceeding or not the human comfort criteria. The results obtained in this investigation reveal that the values of maximum accelerations, calculated based on the deterministic methods may be overestimated in design situations.