Pedestrians Crossing Comfort Analysis for a Footbridge Over Someş River

Abstract

Abstract Due to the relatively low rigidities in the vertical and horizontal planes, the structures of the footbridges must be checked from the point of view of their dynamic behavior, so as to avoid the resonance phenomenon and to ensure the walking comfort of the pedestrians. The paper presents some aspects related to the dynamic behaviour, for the pedestrian bridge with a span of 31.5 m that was constructed in The Railway Park area of Cluj-Napoca city, over the Someşul Mic River, in 2022. In terms of pedestrian traffic density, the structure falls into Category III: Footbridges for normal use occasionally crossed by large groups of pedestrians. After the finalization of the project The Revitalization and Activation of the Railway Park in Cluj-Napoca city, the park will include two pedestrian walkways with similar superstructure, which crosses the Someș River, but in the vicinity of the park a road bridge with 4 traffic lanes and two sidewalks was also built during this period. Given the possibility of changing the density of walking in the future, the footbridge was also analysed for higher density conditions, so that there is no need to carry out structural intervention works in the near future, except for known maintenance works.