Experimental study on vibration control of non-linear hysteretic isolator-cable system

A non-linear hysteretic isolator-cable system is set up to suppress the cable vibration, according to the energy dissipation characteristics of hysteretic system. 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. Firstly, the modal testing on the pure cable without damper is performed to identify the actual modal properties of the cable. Then a series of dynamic tests are conducted on the cable incorporated with a small-size non-linear hysteretic isolator near the lower anchorage. By exciting the cable transversely at a point near the upper anchorage, the nonlinear frequency response curves of the cable-damper system under different excitation force amplitudes and three installation positions of the damper are obtained experimentally. The resonant frequencies and the equivalent viscous damping ratios of the nonlinear system under different excitation levels are also identified, which are useful for the cable vibration control.