Simulation of human - built-environment interaction

Civil structures, particularly bridges, footbridges, tall buildings and long-span floors vibrate when exposed to dynamic forces exerted by wind, vehicles and human movement. The human users/occupants are constantly exposed to this vibration. The current design guidelines for assessment of vibration serviceability of structures are quite simplistic and do not consider the occupancy pattern of the structures and the ways that the human occupants are affected by the structural vibration. Estimating the occupancy pattern of the structure (such as walking paths in corridors and rooms, lying, sitting and standing locations, etc.) is essential during the design of the structure to simulate realistically the dynamic effects of humans on structures and to estimate the effects of vibrations on human users/occupants.
This PhD project is intended to develop a computational model, particularly an agent-based model, to simulate the interaction of human occupants with building internal spaces and furniture. An extensive experimental measurement from real-world buildings will be carried out as part of the project and will be used to develop and validate the computational model.
The PhD researcher will be able to use the state-of-the-art experimental and technical facilities of both the University of Bath and Exeter. The Human-Environment Dynamics (HED) laboratory of the University of Bath and the Vibration Engineering Section (VES) at University of Exeter have extensive laboratory and field vibration testing experimental facilities including visual and LIDAR-based movement monitoring systems, actuators, sensors and data acquisition and control systems that are suitable for use in this research project.
The PhD candidate ideally (but not essential) will be familiar with computational modelling and a programming language such as Matlab or Pyton, preferably with knowledge of crowd simulation.