Development and Application of Eddy Current Damping-Based Tuned Mass Damper for Wind-Induced Vibration Control of Transmission Tower

To reduce the low-order vibrations of high-voltage transmission towers in response to strong winds, a tuned mass damper (TMD) that uses eddy current damping (ECD) with omnidirectional damping function (ECD-TMD) is proposed here. Compared with previous similar devices, the outstanding advantage of the proposed ECD-TMD lies in its use of non-contact ECD, structural simplicity, lack of internal friction, ability to sense micro-vibrations, and in the asymmetric cantilever pendulum structure that enables omnidirectional vibration suppression. Aero-elastic model wind tunnel test and field measurements were used for analyzing and validating the vibration responses of a 50-m-tall transmission tower with and without the proposed ECD-TMD. The results demonstrated that the proposed ECD-TMD reduced transmission tower’s first-order bending vibrations along and across the direction of transmission line. For the mass ratio of approximately 2%, approximately 18–27% reduction of acceleration and 10–25% reduction of displacement occurred. Because the first-order resonance of the tower body in response to wind accounts for a small fraction of the background response, the addition of a TMD device suppresses structural wind vibrations in a limiter manner but can significantly increase the first-order bending damping ratio of the tower.