Exploring vibration control strategies for a footbridge with time-varying modal parameters

Abstract

This paper explores different vibration control strategies for the cancellation of human-induced vibration of a structure with time-varying modal parameters. The motivation of this study is an urban stress-ribbon footbridge (Pedro Gomez Bosque, Valladolid, Spain) that, after a whole-year monitoring, it has been obtained that the natural frequency of a vibration mode at approximately 1.8 Hz (within the normal range of walking) changes up to 20%, mainly due to temperature variations. Thus, this paper takes the annual modal parameter estimates (aprox. 14000 estimations) of this mode and designs three control strategies: a) a tuned mass damper (TMD) tuned to the aforementioned mode using its most-repeated modal properties, b) a semi-active TMD with an on-off control law for the TMD damping, and c) an active mass damper designed using the well-known velocity feedback control strategy with a saturation nonlinearity. Illustrative results have been reported from this preliminary study.