Reduction of Buffeting and Flutter Vulnerability in Suspension Bridges through Tuned Mass Dampers

The mitigating capabilities of tuned mass control devices with respect to wind risk on suspension bridges are dealt with. Among the possible wind-induced issues, the ultimate limit state of bridge collapse due to aeroelastic instability and the serviceability limit state of bridge closure to traffic due to excessive buffeting vibrations are considered. A computational approach based on the finite-element discretization of the structure and on semi-empirical cross-sectional models for the wind loading is developed. In order to account for structural nonlinearities and for the localized damping of the control devices, time-domain simulations are carried out by using indicial functions for modeling unsteady wind loads. A numerical example is offered in the special case of an ideal suspension bridge: the versatility of the developed computational approach is shown and the effectiveness of tuned mass control devices against flutter instability and excessive buffeting vibrations is highlighted.