Evaluation of inverted-pendulum-with-rigid-legs walking locomotion models for civil engineering applications

Abstract

Bipedal models for walkers, originally developed in the research field of biomechanics, have been identified as potential candidates for modelling pedestrians in structural engineering applications. These models provide insight into both the kinetics and kinematics of walking locomotion and are considered to have a significant potential to improve the vibration serviceability assessment of civil engineering structures. Despite this notion, the ability of the bipedal models to represent the key features of the walking gait and natural variability within the pedestrian population are still under-researched. This paper critically evaluates the performance of two bipedal models with rigid legs to realistically both reproduce key features of an individual pedestrian’s walking gait and represent a wide range of individuals. The evaluation is performed for walking on a rigid, rather than vibrating, structure due to the availability of experimental data and expectation that successful modelling on rigid surfaces is a necessary condition for progressing towards modelling on the vibrating structures. Ready-to-use equations are provided and the ability of the models to represent the kinematics and kinetics of individual pedestrians as well as the inter-subject variability typical of the human population is critically evaluated. It was found that the two models could generate realistic combinations of the gait parameters and their correlations, but are less successful in reproducing genuine kinetic and kinematics profiles.