Optimal Damping of Stays in Cable-Stayed Bridges for In-Plane Vibrations

Significant vibrations have been reported in stays of recently constructed cable stayed bridges. The vibrations appear as in-plane vibrations that may be caused by rain–wind- induced aeroelastic interaction or by resonance excitation of the cables from the motion of the pylons. The stays of modern cable-stayed bridges are often designed as twin cables with a spacing of, say 1m. In such cases, it is suggested in the paper to suppress the mentioned in-plane types of vibrations by means of a tuned mass–damper (TMD) placed between the twin cables at their midpoints. The TMD divides the stay into four half-cables, and resonance may occur in each of the half-cables as well as in the entire stay. The optimal tuning of the TMD is investigated based on a mathematical model, where the motion of the support points on the pylons is considered to be the main cause of excitation. The indicated motion is modelled as a band-limited Gaussian white noise process. Three load scenarios are considered: narrow-banded excitations, with the central frequency of the autospectrum close to the lowest eigenfrequency of each of the two cables constituting the stay, and a broadbanded excitation which encompasses both of the mentioned frequencies. The spring and the damper constants of the TMD are optimized so that the variances of the displacement of the adjacent four half-cables, the support point of the TMD and the secondary mass are minimized. At optimal design, it is shown that the variances reduce below 14% of those of the unprotected stay.