Effectiveness of Smart Dampers for Hybrid FRP Cable in Long-

Span Cable-Stayed Bridge

Xin Wang

International Institute for Urban Systems Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
College of Civil Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
Zhishen Wu (zswu@mx.ibaraki.ac.jp)
Department of Urban and Civil Engineering, Ibaraki University, Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan
International Institute for Urban Systems Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China




ABSTRACT This paper presents a theoretical evaluation of modal damping of hybrid FRP cable with smart
dampers for long-span cable-stayed bridge. Based on previous studies of FRP and hybrid FRP cables, hybrid FRP
cable exhibited advantages in static and dynamic behavior compared with conventional steel cables and newly
developed CFRP cables. One of the advantages is its designable sectional structure that can improve internal damping
and benefit vibrational control of stay cable under various excitations. To validate the effectiveness of hybrid FRP
cable with smart damper design, the principle and design consideration of smart dampers were first described. Based
on the energy principle, the theoretical expression on modal damping was derived for in-plane vibration. Finally, in
terms of a detail designed hybrid FRP cable with smart damper, the damping ratio was evaluated which demonstrated
the effectiveness of smart damper design.
KEY WORDS
1 INTRODUCTION
Stay cables in cable-stayed bridge are potentially prone
to vibrate due to their deficiency of structural damping
compared with the other structural components (Fujino
and Hoang 2008). The vibration of stay cable will
become even evident with increasing of length. In one
hand, the lower natural frequency of longer cable may
be easier to excite vibration and the enlarged dimension
will suffer from larger wind effect; on the other hand,
long span cable-stayed bridges usually locate nearby the
sea bay or large rivers and connect heavy traffic line, the
effect of strong wind and traffic becomes even
dominant.
Various types of treatments have been adopted to
suppress potential vibration of cable such as aerodynamic,
structural and mechanical control (Caetano 2007).
Among them, the internal dampers do not require
optimization of position or proper tuning, and can
suppress different kinds of vibration effectively. Due to
this characteristic, the internal damper can also be called
smart damper. However, in practical the internal
dampers mentioned above were found to be not very
effective due to the limited deformation of internal
damping in conventional steel cables (Yamaguchi and
Adhikari 1995). Focusing on the advantages of internal
damper, a new type of smart damper will be introduced
and evaluated in this paper in terms of newly developed
hybrid basalt and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer
(B/CFRP) cables(Wang and Wu 2010a).
FRP composites characterized by high ratio of strength
to weight and durability have been widely applied in
civil infrastructure. As a stay cable, FRP composites
exhibit essential advantages in long-span cable-stayed
bridge aiming at the deficiency of conventional steel
cable such as large sag effect and durability (Wang and
Wu 2010a). CFRP cables were initially investigated to
replace steel cables (Meier 1987). Although superior
static and dynamic performances of long-span cable-
stayed bridge with CFRP cables were proven by
theoretical analysis and FEM simulation, the constantly
high cost still restricted their practical and large amount
of application. Moreover, CFRP cables are also sensitive
to wind effect due to its extremely high ratio of strength
to weigh. Therefore, hybrid B/CFRP cables were
developed to replace steel cable and also overcome the
limitations of CFRP cables in long-span cable-stayed
bridge, by which not only high static and dynamic
performances were achieved but also the overall cost
can be lowered (Wang and Wu 2010b). Furthermore,
focusing on the general deficiency in damping of stay
cables, a special structure of hybrid FRP cable section
can be designed to enhance its internal damping in terms
of different characteristics of two kinds of material in
the whole cable, which is also the objective of this paper.
CICE 2010 - The 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering
September 27-29, 2010, Beijing, China
L. Ye et al. (eds.), Advances in FRP Composites in Civil Engineering
Tsinghua University Press, Beijing and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering

244
2 SMART DAMPER DESIGN
2.1 Principle and sectional structure
For hybrid B/CFRP cable, a special arrangement of
section can be designed focusing on enhancing internal
damping as shown in Figure 1. BFRP tendons are arranged
inside the cable and forming inner cable, while hybrid
FRP tendons are arrayed around inner cable based on
the inner sleeve. A gap is retained between inner and
outer cable where the viscoelastic material can be
inserted. The objective of this design is to generate an
interaction between inner BFRP tendons and outer
hybrid FRP tendons when the entire cable is excited to
vibration because of the different dynamic characteristic
of these two tendon materials as shown in Figure 2. This
interaction can compress the inserted viscoelastic
material that will result in dissipation of vibrational
energy.
BFRP wires(strands)
Hybrid B/CFRP wires(strands)
Viscoelastic material
Inner sleeve

Figure 1 Section of hybrid FRP cable

Figure 2 Relative motion between inner and outer cables
2.2 Arrangement along the cable
Since the inserted viscoelastic damping is equivalent to
the additional load applied along the cable, the larger
amount inserted will lead to more apparent effect of sag.
For instance, for 575 m length hybrid B/CFRP 25%
cable with a 30 mm thickness of continuous viscoelastic
damping, the sag at the middle span will increase 42%
and
2
(a integrated parameter defined by Irvine and
Caughey 1974) of the entire will increase 100%.
Moreover, this influence will become even critical with
increase of cable length. Thus, a continuous distribution
of viscoelastic damping along the cable may not a
suitable choice so that a discontinuous distribution is
suggested herein, by which the volume of inserted
damping will be reduced greatly and the corresponding
influence to cable mechanical property will be
minimized. The most important is the dissipated energy
by discontinuous distribution can be equivalent to that
by continuous way, which can be proven by the
following equations.
The energy dissipated by viscoelastic material per unit
volume in one cycle can be presented by the following
equation (Meyers and Chawla 2009)
2
0 0
0
d
d d
d
T
Q t E
t
c
o c o e c '' = = = t
} } v
(1)
where E'' is the storage modulus of viscoelastic material.

0
and
0
are the maximum strain and stress in one cycle.
is circular frequency of vibration.
For continuous and discontinuous distribution, the
total energy dissipated by viscoelastic material can be
expressed by Eq. (2) and (3), respectively,
2
2
1 1 1 0 1
1
c
F
Q V E A L E
E Lb
e c e
| |
'' '' = t = t
|
'
\ .
(2)
2
2
2 2 2 0 2
2
c
F
Q V E A nl E
E nlb
e c e
| |
'' '' = t = t
|
'
\ .
(3)
where A
c
is the cross sectional area of viscoelastic
material, and L is the length of cable. E' is elastic
modulus, b is the depth of viscoelastic material in
transversal direction of cable, l is the length of
individual viscoelastic damping, n is the number of
viscoelastic damping.
Due to the limitation of gap between inner and outer
cable, the maximum strain of viscoelastic material is
certain. Assuming the total interaction force F between
inner and outer cable is constant because it is only
dependent on the property of inner and outer cable. To
achieve allowable maximum strain of viscoelastic
material, the elastic modulus of
1
E' must be much lower
than that of
2
E' .
Let
1 2
F F
E Lb E nlb
=
' '
, thus
1 2
E L E nl ' ' = (4)
Substitute Eq. (4) into Eq. (2) and (3), the ratio of Q
1

and Q
2
is
1 2
2 1
1
Q E nl
Q E L
'
= =
'
(5)
From Eq. (5), the dissipated energy of discontinuous
damper is equivalent to that of continuous damper by
changing elastic modulus of viscoelastic material.
3 THEORETICAL DERIVATION OF
MODAL DAMPING RATIO
3.1 Assumptions
It is generally more convenient and physically reasonable
to define the damping of a MDOF system using the
September 2729, 2010, Beijing, China

245
damping ratio for each mode rather than to evaluate the
coefficients of the damping matrix because the modal
damping ratios can be determined experimentally or
estimated with adequate precision (Clough and Penzien
2003). Based on the previous study of dynamic
characteristic of hybrid B/CFRP cable for long-span
cable-stayed bridge, only the first order of cable mode
has potential risk of resonance between cable and bridge
(Wang and Wu 2010a), and additionally, in-plane
vibration is more common and important (Caetano 2007)
so that in this study, the first order in-plane vibration is
considered to evaluate damping effect of smart damper
of hybrid B/CFRP cable.
Since the objective is to evaluate the damping effect
of hybrid B/CFRP cable with smart damper, only the
internal damping generated by inserted viscoelastic
material will be considered, and the other sources of
damping including material damping of cable, friction
among each wires and aerodynamic damping are not
taken into consideration. The energy dissipated by axial
and bending deformation of viscoelastic material will be
neglected due to their discontinuous distribution inside
the cable.
3.2 Derivation of dynamic equilibrium equations
The dynamic response of cable directly described by
logarithmic decrement damping of cable can be derived
by applying the Hamiltons principle (Clough and
Penzien 2003)
2 2
1 1
( )d d
T T
T V
T T
T W T o o H H =
} }
(6)
where
T
,
V
, W denote the cable kinetic energy, cable
potential energy and the work done by nonconservative
force, respectively. The cables in cable-stayed bridge are
applied with initial tension in order to maintain static
equilibrium. This initial tension gives rise to the
geometrical stiffness which constitutes a dominant part
in the total stiffness of the cable. Therefore, the potential
energy of cable is consisted of strain energy generated
by initial tension and vibration, and gravitational
potential energy. Herein, when we use free-vibration
decay method to determine modal damping ratio, the
work done by nonconservative force is equivalent to the
energy dissipated by viscoelastic material as show
below,
2 2
1 1
d ( )d
T T
T T
W T Q t T o =
} }
(7)
The potential energy
V
can be presented by the
summation of
S
and
G
.
2
1
2
0
( )d
L
i
S S d d
P EA S c c H = H + +
}
(8)
0
d
L
i
G G v
mgU S H = H +
}
(9)
where
S
i
and
G
i
are strain energy and gravitational
potential energy under static equilibrium, respectively
(Perkins 1992). P is the static cable force. E and A are
elastic modulus and cross-sectional area of cable,
respectively.
d
is the dynamic strain generated by
vibration. mg is cable weight per unit length. U
v
is
displacement along vertical direction. L is the cable
length.

T
can be expressed as
2 2 2
1
1 2 3 2
0
( )d
L
T
m V V V S H = + +
}
(10)
where V
1
, V
2
, V
3
are velocity of differential element in
three directions, respectively.
The energy dissipated by viscoelastic material per
unit volume in one cycle is presented by Eq. (3).
Considering the difference of amplitudes within n
cycles, the dynamic equilibrium equation in Eq. (6) can
be expressed as
( )
0 0
d ( )d
nT nT
T V
T Q x T AH AH =
} }
(11)
The start point is set to be the first maximum amplitude
of vibration after release of external force/displacement,
and the end point is chosen to be the maximum
amplitude of vibration after n cycles. Because the kinetic
energy maintains zero at both of the status, the only
variation of potential energy lies in strain energy and
gravitational potential energy which are only related to
the start and end status because they both belong to
conservative force. Thus, the variation of cable potential
energy can be presented by
2 2
1
,1 , ,1 , 2
0
( ) ( ) d
L
S d d n d d n
P EA S c c c c ( AH = +
}
(12)
,1 ,
0
( )d
L
G v v n
mg U U S AH =
}
(13)
where
d,1
and
d,n
represent the dynamic strain at first
cycle and at n cycles, respectively. U
v,1
and U
v,n

represent the vertical displacement at first cycle and at n
cycles, respectively.
The first order vibration mode shape is presented by
(Caetano 2007)
( )
,
( ) 1 tan( / 2)sin( / ) cos( / )
i m i
U x U x L x L e e e ' ' ' =
(14)
where U
m,i
is maximum amplitude at the middle span in
i cycles, is given by
1/ 2
' /( / ) L P m e e = .
In terms of in-plane equilibrium, the dynamic stain
can be expressed as
, , d i m i
U c q = (15)
where
cos
tan cos sin
2
2 2 2
'(1 8( / ) )
mg
x x
P d L
u e e e
q e
e
| | | | | | | |
| | | |
\ . \ . \ . \ .
' ' '
' = +
+

Considering the dynamic equilibrium of a segment of
inner cable in y direction, the equilibrium equation is
Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering

246
(Clough and Penzien 2003):
2 2 2
2 2 2
cos
i
u y u
P h m f
x x t
t
u
c c c
+ =
c c c
(16)
h

is dynamic force induced by vibration, and the

transversal motion with respect to time is assumed
( , ) ( )
i t
u x t u x e
e
= (17)
The static configuration is described by
4 1
x x
y d
L L
| |
=
|
\ .
(18)
Substitute Eq (17) and (18) into Eq (16)
i t
i
f e
e
o | ( = +

(19)
where
2
,
cos (tan( / 2)sin( / )
cos( / ))(1 cos )
m i
x L
mU
x L
u e e
o e
e u
' ' + + | |
=
|
'
\ .
(19a)
,
cos
m i
mgEAU
H
q u
| = (19b)
Therefore, Eq. (11) can be expressed as follows
,0 ,
2 2 2
1
,0 , 2
2
,0 ,
0
0
( ) ( )
cos ( ) ( )d
m m n
m m n
n
L
m m n
P U U EA U U L
mgL U U Q S S
q q
u
t
(
+

+ =

}
(20)
Let U
m,n
/U
m,0
= and introduce it into Eq (20) and finally
lead to
2
' ' 4 ' '
2 '
B B A C
A

+
= (21)
2 2
,0
1
'
2
m
A EA LU q =
,0 ,0
2
' cos
m m
B P LU mgLU q u
t
=
2 2
,0 ,0 ,0
0
0
1 2
' cos
2
( )d
m m m
n
L
C P LU EA LU mgLU
Q S S
q q u = + +
t

}

Thus, logarithmical damping is
,0
,
1 1 1
ln ln
m
m n
U
U n n
o

| |
| |
= =
|
|
|
\ .
\ .
(22)
4 EVALUATION OF MODAL DAMPING
The longest cable in a 1088 m span cable-stayed bridge
is selected for evaluation (Wang and Wu 2010a). The
smart damper design and corresponding dimension are
shown in Figure 3 and Table 1. A total of nineteen sections
of smart-dampers are installed along the longitudinal
direction of cable. Generally, the Youngs modulus of
viscoelastic material is found in the range from 110
4
to
510
9
N/m
2
.thus, thus, thus, 610
5
N/m
2
of the elastic
modulus of viscoelastic material are adopted for this
particular calculation, considering a loss factor of 1.
40
134
252
4
0
200
Viscoelastic
material Outer cable
Inner cable
500 m 544 m
Symmetry
Length=575 m

Figure 3 Design parameters of smart dampers
The initial amplitude of vibration U
m,0
is assumed to
be 2 m according to the practical observation. Based on
Eq. (21) and (23), the first order of modal damping ratio
contributed by viscoelastic material is calculated to be
0.52%, which proves the effectiveness in comparison
with less than 0.2% of damping ratio of general cables
(even lower for long length of cable). It should be
mentioned that this damping ratio is contributed only by
smart damper, whereas other sources of damping are not
taken into account.
Table 1 Parameters of viscoelastic material
Type of cable Proportion
Sectional
area (mm
2
)
*
Cable force
(N)
Diameter
(mm)
**
Original cable
C 25%
B 75%
19692 1.19*10
7
189
Inner
cable
C 50%
B 50%
9846 7.59*10
6
134
Cable
with
smart
damper
Outer
cable
B 100% 9846 4.31*10
6
252
*
35% volume of matrix is taken into account.
**
Consider 70% packing efficiency.
5 CONCLUTIONS
Focusing on the characteristic of hybrid FRP cable, a
smart damper design was proposed to improve cables
internal damping. Theoretical derivation on damping
ratio was conducted in terms of energy principle and the
evaluation of a smart damper designed cable demonstrated
its effectiveness.
September 2729, 2010, Beijing, China

247
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