Experimental evaluation of a self-powered smart damping system in reducing vibrations ofa full-scale stay cable

Abstract

This paper investigates the effectiveness of a self-powered smart damping systemconsisting of a magnetorheological (MR) damper and an electromagnetic induction(EMI) device in reducing cable vibrations. The proposed smart damping systemincorporates an EMI device, which is capable of converting vibration energy into usefulelectrical energy. Thus, the incorporated EMI device can be used as an alternativepower source for the MR damper, making it a self-powering system. The primarygoal of this experimental study is to evaluate the performance of the proposedsmart damping system using a full-scale, 44.7 m long, high-tension cable. To thisend, an EMI part and an MR damper were designed and manufactured. Usinga cable test setup in a laboratory setting, a series of tests were performed toevaluate the effectiveness of the self-powered smart damping system in reducing freevibration responses of the cable. The performances of the proposed smart dampingsystem are compared with those of an equivalent passive system. Moreover, thedamping characteristics of the smart damping system and the passive system arecompared. The experimental results show that the self-powered smart damping systemoutperforms the passive control cases in reducing the vibrations of the cable. The resultsalso show that the EMI can operate the smart damping system as a sole powersource, demonstrating the feasibility of the self-powering capability of the system.