Control of Vibrations due to Moving Loads on Suspension Bridges

Abstract

The flexibility and low damping of the long span suspended cables in suspension bridges makes them prone to vibrations due to wind and moving loads which affect the dynamic responses of the suspended cables and the bridge deck. This paper investigates the control of vibrations of a suspension bridge due to a vertical load moving on the bridge deck with a constant speed. A vertical cable between the bridge deck and the suspended cables is used to install a hydraulic actuator able to generate an active control force on the bridge deck. Two control schemes are proposed to generate the control force needed to reduce the vertical vibrations in the suspended cables and in the bridge deck. The proposed controllers, whose design is based on Lyapunov theory, guarantee the asymptotic stability of the system. The MATLAB software is used to simulate the performance of the controlled system. The simulation results indicate that the proposed controllers work well. In addition, the performance of the system with the proposed controllers is compared to the performance of the system controlled with a velocity feedback controller.