Modeling and simulation of human-floor system under vertical vibration

Abstract

With the trend towards longer span and thus lower frequency floors, human induced vibration and human-structure interaction has received more and more concern about structural serviceability. When subjected to vertical vibration, a human behaves as a mass-spring-damper system rather than solely as a mass on the structure. The interaction between the human body and the structure results in a significant increase in the damping of the human-structure system. In order to study human-structure interaction, mathematical model for this system is established. The human body and the slab are simulated as a SDOF model respectively. Through laboratory experiment with 30 human samples, the parameters of the SDOF human model were obtained, The result shows that the human resonant frequency is 5.24±0.40Hz, and damping ratio is 39%±0.05. By combining experimental data and simulation, the human body’s damping effect on vibrating floor was quantified in terms of energy absorption. During vibration, human absorbed most of the input energy.