Lateral vibration of footbridges by synchronous walking

On the T-bridge (a cable-stayed footbridge) the girder vibrated laterally with a frequency of 0.93 Hz, the natural frequency of the first lateral mode, when a large number of people crossed the bridge. Some pedestrians felt uncomfortable and unsafe. The girder was excited by the lateral dynamic force which was produced by the zigzag movement of pedestrians. Once the bridge started to vibrate, some of the pedestrians synchronized with the girder vibration, which further increased the girder response. The same vibration occurred on the London Millennium Bridge and the M-bridge (a suspension footbridge), where field measurements were conducted. A dynamic model was then proposed to evaluate the pedestrians’ synchronized dynamic forces. Overall behavior of the girder response calculated by this dynamic model agreed with the measured values on the bridges. It was found by parametric studies that smaller bridge damping and smaller bridge mass produced larger girder response. Higher pedestrian density also increased the girder response unless they were too crowded to walk normally.