Numerical performance assessment of Tuned Mass Dampers to mitigate traffic-induced vibrations of a steel box-girder bridge

In this paper, the effects of Tuned Mass dampers (TMDs) on the reduction of the vertical vibrations of a real horizontally curved steel box-girder bridge due to different traffic loads are numerically investigated. The performance of TMDs to reduce the bridge vibrations can be affected by the parameters such as dynamic characteristics of TMDs, the location of TMDs, the speed and weight of vehicles. In the first part of this study, the effects of mass ratio, damping percentage, frequency ratio, and location of TMDs on the performance of TMDs to decrease vertical vibrations of different sections of bridge deck are evaluated. In the second part, the performance of TMD is investigated for different speeds and weights of traffic loads. Results show that the mass ratio of TMDs is the more effective parameter in reducing imposed vertical vibration in comparison with the damping ratio. Furthermore, it is found that TMD is very sensitive to its tuned frequency, i.e., with a little deviation from a suitable frequency, the expected performance of TMD significantly decreased. TMDs have a positive and considerable performance at certain vehicle speeds and this performance declines when the weight of traffic loads is increased. Besides, the results reveal that the highest impact of TMD on the reduction of the vertical vibrations is when free vibrations occur for the bridge deck. In that case, maximum reductions of 24% and 59% are reported in the vertical acceleration of the bridge deck for the forced and free vibration amplitudes, respectively. The maximum reduction of 13% is also obtained for the maximum displacement of the bridge deck. The results are mainly related to the resonance condition.