Multimode damping optimization of a long-span suspension bridge with damped outriggers for suppressing vortex-induced vibrations

Long-span suspension bridges are subjected to wind-induced vibrations due to their large flexibility and low damping. Damped outriggers have been proposed recently to supplement damping and suppress multimode vibrations of main girders of long-span bridges, e.g., vortex-induced vibrations. However, when installed at multiple positions including tower-girder junction points and girder ends to further improve multimode damping effect, damping effects of the damped outriggers are interdependent. Additionally, the frequency curves of adjacent modes with respect to varying parameters of the damping devices could approach and intersect with each other, making it difficult to track mode orders and modal damping variations in design optimization. This study therefore proposes an optimization method to design damped outrigger parameters for maximizing multimode damping of the bridge. First, the bridge with damped outriggers is modeled generally using finite element method for dynamic analysis. Subsequently, two critical issues in the design, i.e., the mode tracking and multi-objective optimization, are respectively addressed by using the modal assurance criterion and the genetic algorithm. The proposed method is then applied to the Xihoumen Bridge with a main span of 1650 m. The results show that through the proposed optimization, 6 out of 7 modes vulnerable to vortex-induced vibrations can reach a damping ratio over 1.0%, which cannot be achieved by using damped outriggers of a uniform size. Furthermore, the required damper coefficients are decreased by 49.4%. The flexibility of the outriggers has been considered in the design. The developed method is promising in the design of other types bridge damping devices, e.g., multiple tuned mass dampers.