Free Vibrations of Taut Cable with Attached Damper. I: Linear Viscous Damper

Free vibrations of a taut cable with an attached linear viscous damper are investigated in detail using an analytical formulation of the complex eigenvalue problem. This problem is of considerable practical interest in the context of stay-cable vibration suppression in bridges. An expression for the eigenvalues is derived that is independent of the damper coefficient, giving the range of attainable modal damping ratios and corresponding oscillation frequencies in every mode for a given damper location without approximation. This formulation reveals the importance of damper-induced frequency shifts in characterizing the response of the system. New regimes of behavior are observed when these frequency shifts are large, as is the case in higher modes and for damper locations further from the end of the cable. For a damper located sufficiently near the antinode in a given mode, a regime of solutions is identified for which the damping approaches critical as the damper coefficient approaches a critical value. A regime diagram is developed to indicate the type of behavior in each mode for any given damper location.