Dynamic Testing And Analysis Of A Football Stadium

The enthusiasm of people during popular events may cause excessive vibration in stadium structures especially if this movement is coordinated, e.g. if a song is played in the stadium. For certain cases, this vibration may even exceed the acceptable limits defined in different standards. These dynamic vibration levels are generally very difficult to simulate and determine at the design stage. Therefore, the stadia are sometimes monitored to determine the performance of the existing structure during real events such as games and concerts. In this study, dynamic response monitoring of a steel football stadium is presented. The objective of this study is to determine the vibration levels in the context of human-comfort levels in design codes in a comparative way for different events. Especially, the dynamic response caused by human-stadium interaction is evaluated for specific events such as scoring and playing certain songs. The characteristics of these events are also explored in terms of frequency content in relation to the dynamic characteristics of the stadium. ©2010 Society for Experimental Mechanics Inc