In the last five decades, cable-stayed bridges have become increasingly important. The bridge type has been continuously developed and nowadays represents an economical and aesthetic solution when it comes to bridging larger spans. Because of their low stiffness stay cables can easily be excited to vibrate by wind effects. Rain-wind-induced vibrations along with galloping and vortex shedding are among the most critical excitations for stay cables. In this thesis the effects on the stayed cables are examined in more detail and requirements for avoiding vibrations are presented from the literature. Different damper designs and aerodynamic measures to reduce the risk of vibration are shown. The main focus in this work is on viscoelastic dampers such as high damping rubber. Viscoelastic dampers are inexpensive and easy to maintain. They are an attractive measure to address the damping of stay cables. Accurate calculation methods are used to design the damper taking into account the influences of temperature dependence of the material, variation of cable forces, cable sag, bending stiffness, and flexibility of the damper anchorage. This work aims to develop a tool for the optimization of viscouelastic dampers and to facilitate its design. For this purpose, a program was developed using Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic for Applications which is presented and explained in detail. All relevant parameters of the stay cable can be entered and a viscoelastic damper can be optimally adjusted to the boundary conditions. The work also includes a parameter study with stay cables from eight different bridges of different sizes. For cable-stayed bridges with cable lengths up to 100 metres, a single elastomer damper can achieve sufficient cable damping. For larger cable-stayed bridges a combination of several measures can be used to prevent cable vibrations.
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In the last five decades, cable-stayed bridges have become increasingly important. The bridge type has been continuously developed and nowadays represents an economical and aesthetic solution when it comes to bridging larger spans. Because of their low stiffness stay cables can easily be excited to vibrate by wind effects. Rain-wind-induced vibrations along with galloping and vortex shedding are among the most critical excitations for stay cables. In this thesis the effects on the stayed cables...
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