In recent years civil engineering structures such as floors, footbridges, and staircases, have reported unacceptable vibration when they are dynamically excited by pedestrians. When such structures have a particular combination of high structural flexibility and low inherent damping, there is potential for excessive vibration. Pedestrian-structure interaction (PSI) is especially noticeable when the lowest structural natural frequencies are close to the dominant pedestrian pace frequency or its harmonics. Although most of these structures are designed according to existing standards and guidelines, there are still many uncertainties in the human actions that may lead to unexpected structural behavior, increasing the vibration responses and exceeding serviceability limit states. How a pedestrian excites a structure and how that structure affects a pedestrian's gait is not fully understood. Therefore, a realistic analysis of PSI must be performed to properly incorporate these effects toward more rational structural designs. This study aims to identify, within this class of the walking-induced load problem, the vibration mechanisms, the mathematical models, and methods, to address excessive vibration in pedestrian structures. After conducting an in-depth evaluation of current guidelines and provisions for analysis and design of pedestrian structures, models to enable more realistic design under such uncertainties have been developed. The results establish a body of knowledge regarding human loads and structural responses, yielding the potential for more rational approaches to improve the analysis and design of pedestrian structures.

Thesis deals with the modeling of pedestrian excitation of structures and obtaining the corresponding dynamic response of the structure. The trend of modern slender structures places more emphasis on the accuracy of modeling pedestrian dynamic excitation, which is difficult because of the intelligent behavior of pedestrians and the biological nature of the modeled pedestrian. First part of the thesis deals with traditional models of pedestrian excitation, based on application of pedestrian ground force to the model of construction. Models are explored on a model of slender footbridge for many different excitation variants in order to explore the specifics of the force excitation application and the structure response calculation. In second part of the thesis biomechanical pedestrian models are developed, including inertial forces, to calculate the pedestrian interaction with the structure. Parametric studies carried out on simplified structural models research the influence of design parameters of biomechanical models on dynamic response. The aim is to obtain a more accurate model of the pedestrian-construction system for refinement of the design of structures. The design of a tuned mass dampers for the reduction of pedestrian induced vibrations is also explored. Tuned mass dampers are devoted to parametric studies that deal with the influence of design parameters of the damper on the efficiency and design requirements of the device. The aim is to explore the design parameters and their influence on the efficient and economical design of the device. In the thesis were developed two biomechanical models, a simple biomechanical model with one vertical degree of freedom and a bipedal model of a human walking. Models have proven a certain degree of interaction when exciting light footbridges by one pedestrian. Bipedal model then also brought a partial insight into the mechanics of walking and the causes of pedestrian contact forces.