A Review on Comfort of Pedestrian Bridges Under Human-Induced Vibrations and Tuned Mass Damper Control Technologies

Zhang, Shoukun; Wu, Baijin; Tang, Yong; Zhang, Han; Xu, Zheng; Li, Guoqiang; Lu, Shuang

doi:10.3390/ma18163903

Open AccessReview

A Review on Comfort of Pedestrian Bridges Under Human-Induced Vibrations and Tuned Mass Damper Control Technologies

by

Shoukun Zhang

^1,2,†,

Baijin Wu

^1,†,

Yong Tang

²,

Han Zhang

²,

Zheng Xu

^3,*,

Guoqiang Li

^1,* and

Shuang Lu

^1,4

¹

School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150006, China

²

NO. Three Engineering Co., Ltd. of CCCC First Highway Engineering Co., Ltd., Beijing 101102, China

³

College of Ecology and Environment, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China

⁴

School of Physics and Materials Science, Changji University, Changji 831100, China

^*

Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.

^†

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Materials 2025, 18(16), 3903; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18163903

Submission received: 8 July 2025 / Revised: 6 August 2025 / Accepted: 14 August 2025 / Published: 21 August 2025

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Technologies of Cement-Based Materials)

Download

Browse Figures

Versions Notes

Abstract

With the development of urban infrastructure construction, while pedestrian bridges meet traffic functions the issue of their comfort has become a core consideration in structural design. This is because the long-span lightweight structures, with their large flexibility and low fundamental frequencies, are also vulnerable to human-induced vibrations. Pedestrian load modellings include the deterministic time-domain model, which is widely adopted in codes due to its simplicity, the random model that takes into account individual variability, and the frequency-domain model. The deterministic time-domain model has abundant parameter determination results and has become relatively mature, while the latter two, although more rigorous, have relatively lagging development. Numerous studies have shown that acceleration limits are the main indicators for comfort assessment. Vertical vibrations are controlled by amplitude constraints, while for the lateral vibrations the “lateral lock-in” that can cause dynamic instability needs to be evaluated with particular emphasis. When comfort exceeds an acceptable degree, a prevalent countermeasure is to attach a Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) or Multiple Tuned Mass Damper (MTMD) system to the structure—the latter demonstrates stronger robustness when dealing with random pedestrian loads.

Keywords: pedestrian bridge; comfort; anthropogenic vibration; pedestrian load modeling; normative documents; damping design; tuned mass damper

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Zhang, S.; Wu, B.; Tang, Y.; Zhang, H.; Xu, Z.; Li, G.; Lu, S. A Review on Comfort of Pedestrian Bridges Under Human-Induced Vibrations and Tuned Mass Damper Control Technologies. Materials 2025, 18, 3903. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18163903

AMA Style

Zhang S, Wu B, Tang Y, Zhang H, Xu Z, Li G, Lu S. A Review on Comfort of Pedestrian Bridges Under Human-Induced Vibrations and Tuned Mass Damper Control Technologies. Materials. 2025; 18(16):3903. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18163903

Chicago/Turabian Style

Zhang, Shoukun, Baijin Wu, Yong Tang, Han Zhang, Zheng Xu, Guoqiang Li, and Shuang Lu. 2025. "A Review on Comfort of Pedestrian Bridges Under Human-Induced Vibrations and Tuned Mass Damper Control Technologies" Materials 18, no. 16: 3903. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18163903

APA Style

Zhang, S., Wu, B., Tang, Y., Zhang, H., Xu, Z., Li, G., & Lu, S. (2025). A Review on Comfort of Pedestrian Bridges Under Human-Induced Vibrations and Tuned Mass Damper Control Technologies. Materials, 18(16), 3903. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18163903

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Menu

A Review on Comfort of Pedestrian Bridges Under Human-Induced Vibrations and Tuned Mass Damper Control Technologies

Abstract

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI