Engineering Structures 31 (2009) 27972800

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Short communication

Design of viscous dampers targeting multiple cable modes

F. Weber a, , G. Feltrin a , M. Malanka b , W. Fobo c , H. Distl c
a

Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, Structural Engineering Research Laboratory, berlandstrasse 129, CH-8600 Dbendorf, Switzerland

AGH University of Science and Technology, Department of Process Control, al., Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Cracow, Poland

Maurer Shne GmbH & Co. KG, Frankfurter Ring 193, D-80807 Munich, Germany

article

info

Article history:
Received 16 June 2008
Received in revised form
26 February 2009
Accepted 23 June 2009
Available online 4 July 2009
Keywords:
Cable
Damper
Damping ratio
Viscous

abstract
Rainwind induced stay cable vibrations may occur at different cable eigenfrequencies. Therefore,
external transverse dampers have to be designed for several target cable modes. The resulting modal
damping ratios have to fulfil Irwins criterion for minimum Scruton number such that rainwind induced
vibrations can be excluded. For this situation, this paper presents a systematic and easy applicable design
procedure for linear viscous dampers that respects Irwins criterion, minimizes the damper position and
leads to almost minimum variance of the target modal damping ratios. Minimum damper position is
preferable from the aesthetic point of view, and it minimizes the installation costs, reduces the damper
support flexibility and thereby increases the damper efficiency. Minimum variance of the target modal
damping ratios maximizes the safety against large amplitude vibrations due to the unpredictability of the
predominant mode.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The common countermeasure to suppress rainwind induced
stay cable vibrations is to increase the cable damping ratio by external oil dampers positioned close to the lower cable end (Fig. 1a).
According to Irwins criterion [1], the cable damping ratio against
rainwind induced vibrations has to be at least

min >

Scmin air D2

,
Scmin = 10
(1)
m
where Sc is the Scruton number, m the cable mass per unit length,
air the air density and D the cable diameter. Since oil dampers behave like linear viscous dampers [2], oil dampers can be optimized
by optimal tuning of their damper coefficient c for maximum cable
damping according to [3]:
cnopt
=

(2)
an
where T is the cable tension force, a the damper position and n
the radial frequency of the undamped mode n. The resulting cable
damping ratio n is almost mode independent; see [3]:

n = nmax
=

a
2l

Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 44 823 45 36; fax: +41 44 823 44 55.
E-mail addresses: felix.weber@empa.ch (F. Weber), glauco.feltrin@empa.ch
(G. Feltrin), masmar@agh.edu.pl (M. Malanka), fobo@mchn.maurer-soehne.de
(W. Fobo), distl@mchn.maurer-soehne.de (H. Distl).
0141-0296/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2009.06.020

(3)

where is the damper efficiency, nmax the theoretic maximum

damping ratio and l the cable length. Assuming optimal damper
tuning, the lowest position of the damper on the cable that respects
Irwins criterion becomes
2l min
.
min = n amin
=

(4)

Since a is the distance from the cable support to the damper

measured along the cable (Fig. 1a), amin will be denoted as the minimum damper position in the following. The minimized damper
position with constraint (1) is most desirable from the aesthetic
point of view and it minimizes the damper support costs. This result can be used in (2) in order to derive a closed-form solution
for the damper coefficient that combines optimal damper tuning,
minimum damper position and safety against rainwind induced
cable vibrations as follows:
cnopt

min(a)

T
2 min ln

(5)

Eq. (5) necessitates that the most critical mode n, hence the target mode, is known. This might be the case for the retrofit of a stay
cable bridge but it is most unlikely if dampers are installed during
the construction of the bridge as countermeasure against future,
unknown cable vibrations. Then, dampers are to be designed for
several target modes due to the unpredictability of the predominant mode, as for example suggested in [4]. In this case, the design
of the damper coefficient and position may require iterations in order to meet constraint (1), which usually results in strongly varying

2798

F. Weber et al. / Engineering Structures 31 (2009) 27972800

Fig. 1. (a) Transverse damper on cable; (b) normalized damping ratio as a function of non-dimensional damping parameter.

Fig. 2. Damper position for required minimum damping ratio of modes 12 and 15 depending on /n.

damping ratios and does not minimize the damper position. Therefore, this paper describes a systematic design procedure for linear
viscous dampers that have to dampen several target modes with
respect to Irwins criterion (1), minimize the damper position and
generate almost minimum variance of the resulting modal damping ratios, which is most desirable due to the unpredictability of
the predominant mode.
2. Proposed solution
For a cable of length l with a viscous damper at a distance a close
to one end, the normalized damping ratio n /(a/l) of mode n may
be approximated as derived in [3] as follows:

n n
=
1 + n2
(a/l)
cl
T

n .
l

i
j
=
.
2
1 + i
1 + j2

(8)

Assuming linear cable behaviour, i.e. n = n1 , Eq. (7) leads to

(6)

i = j .
j

where n is the non-dimensional damping parameter

n =

the non-dimensional damping parameter divided by mode number

n, then the damping curves do not coincide; see Figs. 2a and b
for the cases of target modes 12 and 15. It can be observed
from these figures that the region above the bold envelope curve
describes all possible damper designs that meet constraint (1). The
envelope minimum characterizes the damper design for minimum
damper position which still fulfils Irwins criterion. The design
of the damper for this point is derived by equating the modal
damping ratios of the lowest target mode i and the highest target
mode j; thus

(7)

Plotting n /(a/l) against n leads to congruent normalized

damping curves showing maximum damping at n = 1; see [5]
(Fig. 1b). However, if the relative damper position divided by the
minimum required modal damping ratio min is plotted against

(9)

Putting (9) into (8) yields

a third-order
polynomial in i . The
three solutions are 0, (i/j) and + (i/j). The solution 0 describes the situation where the damper coefficient is 0, which is
equivalent to the cable without a damper (Fig. 1a), whereas the
negative solution does not have a physical meaning. The positive
min(a)
solution yields the non-dimensional damping parameter ij
that produces equal damping ratios of the highest and lowest

F. Weber et al. / Engineering Structures 31 (2009) 27972800

2799

Fig. 3. (a) Target modal damping ratios and (b) corresponding minimum damper positions.

modes of the target mode range ij and minimizes the damper position:

s
min(a)
ij

i
j

(10)

The minimum damper position that guarantees at least min to

all target modes is derived by putting the result of Eq. (10) into
Eq. (6), replacing n by min and taking the damper efficiency
into account.

 a min
l

ij

min (i + j)
.

ij

(11)

Putting the obtained expressions for the non-dimensional

damping parameter (10) and the minimum damper position (11) in
Eq. (7) and taking advantage of i = i1 for linear cable behaviour
yields the desired damper coefficient as follows:
opt

cij

min(a)

T
.
min l1 (i + j)

(12)

This damper coefficient produces equal damping ratios of the

lowest and highest modes of the target mode range, minimizes
the damper position and fulfils Irwins criterion. By combining
Eq. (9) and (10), the non-dimensional damping parameter for the
minimized damper position, target mode range i j and mode n
becomes



n
n
(a)
(a)
imin
= imin
= .
j
j
n

ij

(13)

Putting the results of Eqs. (11) and (13) into Eq. (6), the resulting
damping ratio of mode n for the minimized damper position and
target modes i j becomes



min n(i + j)
(a)
imin
=
.
j
n
(n2 + ij)

(14)

As expected, Eq. (14) leads to min for n = i and n = j,

respectively, whereas the modes between the lowest and highest
target modes have higher damping ratios. This is visible in Fig. 2b,
where the curves of modes 24 could generate min even with
smaller damper position and therefore generate more damping
than min for damper position minimized for target modes 15.
Fig. 3a depicts the same behaviour for the examples of target
modes 12, 13, 14 and 15 and Fig. 3b the corresponding damper
positions. As mentioned above, the minimum damper position

is a desirable optimization criterion because it minimizes the

damper support costs and hardly affects the original bridge design.
Moreover, small damper support dimensions lower the support
flexibility and thereby increase the damper efficiency, as shown
for example by [6]. In contrast, in order to maximize the structural
safety, the damper should be optimally tuned to the predominant
mode. In general, this mode is unknown. Therefore, it would be
advantageous to design the damper for equal damping ratios of
the target modes. Since this is not possible for viscous dampers
for more than two target modes, see Eq. (8), the best feasible
solution is minimum variance of the target modal damping ratio.
In the following, this solution is investigated and compared to
the results of the minimum damper position. The variance and
standard deviation, respectively, of the target modes 13, 14 and
15 are therefore calculated as a function of . Figs. 4a and b show
the results for target modes 13 and 14, respectively. The circle
denotes the values of and standard deviation that correspond
to the minimum damper position and fulfil constraint (1). Going
to the left or right on this curve for constant damper position
means that constraint (1) is either not fulfilled for the lowest or
highest mode. By increasing the damper position, similar standard
deviation curves can be derived. On each of these curves the point
is determined where the standard deviation is minimized and
constraint (1) is fulfilled. Connecting all these points yields the
trajectories in bold style in Figs. 4a and b. Hence, the trajectory
minimum indicated by the large cross represents the damper
design for minimum standard deviation of the target modes which
also respect Irwins criterion. It is seen from Figs. 3 and 4 that
only the case of target modes 13 requires a slightly different
damper tuning if the goal is minimum standard deviation of the
target modal damping ratios in contrast to minimum damper
position. To reach the minimized standard deviation in this case,
the damper position has to be increased by approximately 0.9%
of its minimum value (Fig. 3b). The resulting standard deviation
then becomes approximately 0.6% smaller than for the minimum
damper position.
3. Conclusions
A design procedure for linear viscous dampers for damping
of several target cable modes has been presented. The method
minimizes the damper position with the constraint that all target
modes show at least the minimum required damping ratio which
is thought to be sufficient to avoid rainwind induced stay cable
vibrations. The minimum damper position minimizes the damper

2800

F. Weber et al. / Engineering Structures 31 (2009) 27972800

Fig. 4. Standard deviation of damping ratios: (a) for target modes 13 and (b) for target modes 14.

support costs, only marginally affects the bridge aesthetics and

enables large damper efficiency due to minimal support flexibility.
Several target modes are specified due to the unpredictability of
the predominant cable mode for a bridge under construction. The
method is suitable for real applications since it does not need
iterations and only requires the cable properties tension force,
length, mass per unit length and damper position, which are
known already during the design phase of the bridge. The method
produces equal damping ratios of the lowest and highest target
modes whereas the damping ratios of the other target modes
are higher. Due to the unpredictability of the predominant cable
mode, it would preferable to design linear viscous dampers in a
way that all target modes show equal damping ratios. However,
this is impossible for linear viscous dampers due to their modal
dependence. Therefore, minimum variance of the target modal
damping ratios is the best that can be achieved. The damper
designs for minimum damper position and minimum variance of
the target modal damping ratios are then compared for the cases
of target mode ranges 12, 13, 14 and 15. It turns out that the
method for minimum damper position also minimizes the variance
of the target modal damping ratios in the cases of damping modes
12, 14 and 15. Only in the case of damping modes 13 do the
results of the two methods slightly differ, by less than 0.9%. Thus,

the method for minimum damper position is also preferable from

the structural safety point of view.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of
the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research
(EMPA), Dbendorf, Switzerland, and the technical support of
the industrial partner Maurer Shne GmbH & Co. KG, Munich,
Germany.
References
[1] Irwin PA. Wind vibrations of cables on cable-stayed bridges. In: Building to last
structures congress: Proceedings of the 15th structures congress. ASCE, Reston;
1997. p. 383-7.
[2] Weber F, Fobo W, Distl H. Damping of several single mode vibrations with linear
viscous dampers. In: Proc 7th int symp on cable dynamics. 2007. p. 40914.
[3] Krenk S. Vibrations of a taut cable with an external damper. J Appl Mech 2000;
67(4):7726.
[4] Wang XY, Ni YQ, Ko JM, Chen ZQ. Optimal design of viscous dampers for multimode vibration control of bridge cables. J Eng Struct 2005;27(5):792800.
[5] Kumarasena S, Jones NP, Irwin P, Taylor P. Wind induced vibrations of stay
cables. Interim final report. Report RDT 05-004. February 2005.
[6] Zhou Y, Sun L. Complex modal analysis of a taut cable with a three-element
maxwell damper. In: Proc 6th int symp on cable dynamics; 2005. p. 397404.