Composite sandwich footbridge - measured dynamic response vs. FEA

The paper describes a process of in situ dynamic tests of a composite sandwich footbridge before its accepta-tion for exploitation in real traffic conditions. It is only a part of a big research task that includes design, manufacture and introduce practical application of the bridge. The in situ measured natural modes and fre-quencies are compared with numerically determined ones. Finite element analysis is established to estimate the behavior of the bridge. The obtained results present good correlation with the experimental values.