Experimental study on cable vibration control using electrorheological damper

Stay cables are susceptible to vibration under wind and traffic loading due to their large flexibility, relatively small mass and very low inherent damping. A recent research interest has been given to the semi-active control of cable vibration by using electrorheological (ER) and magnetorheological (MR) fluid dampers. This paper reports an experimental study on vibration mitigation of a stay cable by installing an ER damper in the transverse direction near the lower anchorage. A 12 m long stay cable specimen, which is a 1:12 scale model of a 143 m long prototype cable in an actual cable structure, is established for the experimental study. A specific low-force ER damper is constructed for this purpose. By exciting the cable at a point near the upper anchorage, the nonlinear frequency response curves of the cable-damper system under different exciting force amplitudes and applied voltage levels are obtained.