LAUSR

The purpose of this paper is to study experimentally and numerically the dynamic response of a hollow core concrete slab due to a single pedestrian. To achieve this aim, a test structure consisting of six hollow core concrete elements of dimension 10 m × 1.2 m has been built. A finite element model of the structure based on orthotropic shell elements has been implemented. The accuracy of the finite element model has been assessed by reproducing numerically hammer-impact tests. For that, the experimental impact load has been imported to the finite element model. Very good agreements between experimental and numerical results have been obtained. Then, three different single pedestrian walking paths have been tested experimentally. Each of these paths has been reproduced numerically using four numerical load models taken from the literature. The results show that the four pedestrian loads give rather different numerical results regarding the amplitudes of the acceleration for each mode. In addition, a small change in the numerical parameters of the slab can give large differences in the numerical results. This shows that an accurate numerical modelling of a single pedestrian loading is not an easy task. The results show also that during transversal and diagonal walking paths, the vibrations due to the torsional mode of the slab can be higher than the ones due to the lowest bending mode.