Modelling crowd-structure interaction

An emerging research topic in civil engineering is the dynamic interaction between crowds and structures. Structures such as footbridges, which oscillate due to the crossing of a group of pedestrians, or stands within stadia or concert halls, which vibrate due to the rythmic movement of the audience are of particular interest. The objective of this study is twofold: modelling the movement of pedestrians with consideration of pedestrian-pedestrian, and pedestrian-obstacle interactions, and the incorporation of a pedestrian-structure coupling in the previous model. Fremond’s model, which allows us to simulate the movement of an assembly of particles and accounts for collisions among considered rigid particles, is presented and adapted to the crowd by giving a willingness to the circular particles, which allows each pedestrian to move according to a given target. To handle the crowd-structure interaction in the case of lateral oscillations of footbridges, the Kuramoto differential equation governing the time evolution of the lateral motion of each pedestrian is implemented in the previous model. Preliminary results obtained from numerical simulations are presented and discussed.