• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.89-106
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• 2022

The negative stiffness of an active or semi-active damper system has been proven to be very effective in reducing dynamic response. Therefore, energy dissipation devices possessing negative stiffness, such as viscous inertial mass dampers (VIMDs), have drawn much attention recently. The control performance of the VIMD for cable vibration mitigation has already been demonstrated by many researchers. In this paper, a new optimal design procedure for VIMD parameters for taut cable vibration control is presented based on the fixed-points method originally developed for tuned mass damper design. A model consisting of a taut cable and a VIMD installed near a cable end is studied. The frequency response function (FRF) of the cable under a sinusoidal load distributed proportionally to the mode shape is derived. Then, the fixed-points method is applied to the FRF curves. The performance of a VIMD with the optimal parameters is subsequently evaluated through simulations. A taut cable model with a tuned VIMD is established for several cases of external excitation. The performance of VIMDs using the proposed optimal parameters is compared with that in the literature. The results show that cable vibration can be significantly reduced using the proposed optimal VIMD with a relatively small amount of damping. Multiple VIMDs are applied effectively to reduce the cable vibration with multi-modal components.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.521-536
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• 2019

Using magnetorheological (MR) dampers in multiswitch open-loop control mode has been shown to be cost-effective for cable vibration mitigation. In this paper, a method for analyzing the damping performance of taut cables incorporating MR dampers in open-loop control mode is developed considering the effects of damping coefficient, damper stiffness, damper mass, and stiffness of the damper support. Making use of a three-element model of MR dampers and complex modal analysis, both numerical and asymptotic solutions are obtained. An analytical expression is obtained from the asymptotic solution to evaluate the equivalent damping ratio of the cable-damper system in the open-loop control mode. The individual and combined effects of the damping coefficient, damper stiffness, damper mass and stiffness of damper support on vibration control effectiveness are investigated in detail. The main thrust of the present study is to derive a general formula explicitly relating the normalized system damping ratio and the normalized damper parameters in consideration of all concerned effects, which can be easily used for the design of MR dampers to achieve optimal open-loop vibration control of taut cables.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.1261-1278
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• 2015

Due to their low intrinsic damping, stay cables in cable-stayed bridges have often exhibited unanticipated and excessive vibrations which result in increasing maintenance frequency and disruption to normal operations of the entire bridges. Mitigation of undesired cable vibration can be achieved by attaching an external damping device near the anchorage. High Damping Rubber (HDR) dampers have many advantages such as compact size, better aesthetics, easy maintenance, temperature stability, and cost benefits; therefore, they have been widely used to increase cable damping. Although a single damper has been shown to reduce cable vibrations, it is not the most effective method due to geometric constraints. This paper proposes the use of two HDR dampers to improve effectiveness and robustness in suppressing cable vibration. Oscillation parameters of the cable-dampers system were investigated in detail by modeling the stay cable as a taut string and each HDR damper as complex-valued impedance and by using an analytical formulation of the complex eigenvalue problem. The problem of two HDR dampers arbitrarily located along a cable is solved and the solution is discussed. Asymptotic formulas to calculate the damping ratios of the cable with two HDR dampers installed near the anchorage(s) are proposed and compared with the exact solutions. Further, a design example is presented in order to justify the methodology. The results of this study show that when the two HDR dampers are installed close to each other on the same end of the cable, some interaction between the dampers leads to reduced damping ratio. When the dampers are on the opposite ends of the cable, they are effective in increasing damping ratio and can provide better vibration reduction to multiple modes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.2
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• pp.221-235
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• 2023

To calculate the vibrations of a tout cable subjected to axial support excitations, a nonlinear relationship of cable force and the support displacement under static situations are employed to depict the quasi-static vibration of the cable. The dynamic components of quasi-static vibration are inputted as "direct loads" to cause the parametric vibrations on the cable. Both the governing equations of motion and deformation compatibility for parametric vibrations are then derived, which indicates the high coupling of cable parametric force and deformation. Numerical solutions, based on the finite difference method, are put forward for the parametric vibrations, which is validated by the finite element method under periodic axial support excitations. For the quasi-static response, the shorter cables are more sensitive to support excitations than longer ones at small cable force. The quasi-static cable force makes the greatest contribution to the total cable force, but the parametric cable force is responsible for the occurrence of cable loosening at large excitation amplitudes. Moreover, this study also revealed that the traditional approach, assuming a linear relationship between quasi-static cable force and axial support displacement, would result in some great error of the cable parametric responses.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.83-94
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• 2019

Passive negative stiffness dampers (NSDs) that possess superior energy dissipation abilities, have been proved to be more efficient than commonly adopted passive viscous dampers in controlling stay cable vibrations. Recently, inertial mass dampers (IMDs) have attracted extensive attentions since their properties are similar to NSDs. It has been theoretically predicted that superior supplemental damping can be generated for a taut cable with an IMD. This paper aims to theoretically investigate the impact of the cable sag on the efficiency of an IMD in controlling stay cable vibrations, and experimentally validate superior vibration mitigation performance of the IMD. Both the numerical and asymptotic solutions were obtained for an inclined sag cable with an IMD installed close to the cable end. Based on the asymptotic solution, the cable attainable maximum modal damping ratio and the corresponding optimal damping coefficient of the IMD were derived for a given inertial mass. An electromagnetic IMD (EIMD) with adjustable inertial mass was developed to investigate the effects of inertial mass and cable sag on the vibration mitigation performance of two model cables with different sags through series of first modal free vibration tests. The results show that the sag generally reduces the attainable first modal damping ratio of the cable with a passive viscous damper, while tends to increase the cable maximum attainable modal damping ratio provided by the IMD. The cable sag also decreases the optimum damping coefficient of the IMD when the inertial mass is less than its optimal value. The theoretically predicted first modal damping ratio of the cable with an IMD, taking into account the sag generally, agrees well with that identified from experimental results, while it will be significantly overestimated with a taut-cable model, especially for the cable with large sag.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1A
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• pp.125-133
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• 2008

According to longer and longer span, dynamic instability of stay cable should be prevented. Dynamic instability occurs mainly symmetric 1st mode and antisymmetric 1st mode in stay cable. Especially symmetric 1st mode has a lot of influence on sag. Therefore fundamental frequency of stay cable is different from that of taut sting. Irvine, Triantafyllou, Ahn etc. analyzed dynamic behavior of taut cable with sag through analytical technical and their researches give important results for large bounds of Irvine parameter. But each research shows mutually different values out of characteristic (cross-over or mode-coupled) point and each solution of frequency equations of all researchers can be very difficultly found because of their very high non-linearity. Presented study focuses on fundamental frequency of stay cable. Generalized mechanical energy with symmetric 1st mode vibration shape satisfied boundary conditions is evolved by Rayleigh-Ritz method. It is possible to give linear analytic solution within characteristic point. Error by this approach shows only below 3% at characteristic point against existing researches. And taut cable don't exceed characteristic point. I.e. high accuracy, easy solving techniques, and a little bit limitations. Therefore presented study can be announced that it is good study ergonomically.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.363-380
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• 2005

The cable tension plays an important role in the construction, assessment and long-term health monitoring of cable structures. The cable vibration equation is nonlinear if cable sag and bending stiffness are included. The engineering implementation of a vibration-based cable tension evaluation is mostly carried out by the simple taut string theory. However, the simple theory may cause unacceptable errors in many applications since the cable sag and bending stiffness are ignored. From the practical point of view, it is necessary to have empirical formulas if they are simple and yet accurate. Based on the solutions by means of energy method and fitting the exact solutions of cable vibration equations where the cable sag and bending stiffness are respectively taken into account, the empirical formulas are proposed in the paper to estimate cable tension based on the cable fundamental frequency only. The applicability of the proposed formulas is verified by comparing the results with those reported in the literatures and with the experimental results carried out on the stay cables in the laboratory. The proposed formulas are straightforward and they are convenient for practical engineers to fast estimate the cable tension by the cable fundamental frequency.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.627-643
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• 2015

Negative stiffness, previously emulated by active or semi-active control for cable vibration mitigation, is realized passively using a self-contained highly compressed spring, the negative stiffness device (NSD).The NSD installed in parallel with a viscous damper (VD) in the vicinity of cable anchorage, enables increment of damper deformation during cable vibrations and hence increases the attainable cable damping. Considering the small cable displacement at the damper location, even with the weakening device, the force provided by the NSD-VD assembly is approximately linear. Complex frequency analysis has thus been conducted to evaluate the damping effect of the assembly on the cable; the displacement-dependent negative stiffness is further accounted by numerical analysis, validating the accuracy of the linear approximation for practical ranges of cable and NSD configurations. The NSD is confirmed to be a practical and cost-effective solution to improve the modal damping of a cable provided by an external damper, especially for super-long cables where the damper location is particularly limited. Moreover, mathematically, a linear negative stiffness and viscous damping assembly has proven capability to represent active or semi-active control for simplified cable vibration analysis as reported in the literature, while in these studies only the assembly located near cable anchorage has been addressed. It is of considerable interest to understand the general characteristics of a cable with the assembly relieving the location restriction, since it is quite practical to have an active controller installed at arbitrary location along the cable span such as by hanging an active tuned mass damper. In this paper the cable frequency variations and damping evolutions with respect to the arbitrary assembly location are then evaluated and compared to those of a taut cable with a viscous damper at arbitrary location, and novel frequency shifts are observed. The characterized complex frequencies presented in this paper can be used for preliminary damping effect evaluation of an adaptive passive or semi-active or active device for cable vibration control.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.5A
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• pp.657-664
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• 2008

Rain-wind induced cable vibration can cause the damages in the cable-stayed bridge due to very little inherent damping characteristics and low fundamental frequency. External Dampers attached to stay cables near anchorages have been shown to be effective means at short stay-cables. However, installation locations of external dampers are limited to a particular range due to aesthetic and practical reasons for very long stay-cables. A recent study by the authors showed that the stay-cable vibration system can perform better than the optimal passive viscous damper, thereby demonstrating its applicability in large cable-stayed bridges. This paper extends the previous study on the taut string representation of the cable by adding cable sag and inclination. The response of the proposed system compared to those of the cable with and without an external damper, and the movable anchorage system provides very effective mitigation of cable vibration. Cable damping ratio is seen to be remarkably reduced by movable anchorage system for a wide range of cable sag. This result shows that the sag effects of the proposed system should be considered.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.5A
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• pp.881-885
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• 2006

Rain-wind induced cable vibration can cause serious problems in cable-stayed bridges. Externally attached dampers have been used to provide an effective means to suppress the vibration of relatively short stay-cables. For very long stay-cables, however, such damper systems are rendered ineffective, as the dampers need to be attached near the end of cables for aesthetic reasons. This paper investigates a new control system to mitigate the cable vibration. The proposed control system which consists of a laminated rubber bearing and an internal damper may be installed inside of the cable anchorage. A simple analytical model of the cable-damper system is developed first based on the taut string representation of the cable. The response of a cable with the proposed control system is obtained and then compared to those of the cable with and without an external passive damper. The proposed stay-cable vibration control system is shown to perform better than the optimal passive viscous damper, thereby demonstrating its applicability in large cable-stayed bridges for mitigation of rain-wind induced vibration of stay-cables.