Model-based design and experimental validation of active vibration control for a stress ribbon bridge using pneumatic muscle actuators

This paper describes the development of an active vibration control system for a light and flexible stress ribbon footbridge. The 13 m span carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) stress ribbon bridge was built in the laboratory of the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Berlin Institute of Technology. Its lightness and flexibility result in high vibration sensitivity. To reduce pedestrian-induced vibrations, very light pneumatic muscle actuators are placed at handrail level, introducing control forces. First, a reduced discretized analytical model is derived for the stress ribbon bridge. To verify the analytical prediction, experiments without feedback control are conducted. Based on this model, a delayed velocity feedback control strategy is designed. To handle the nonlinearities of the muscle actuator, a subsidiary force control is implemented. Then the control performance from numerical simulation is verified by experiments under free vibration. As a result, analytical analyses agree well with experimental results. It is demonstrated that handrail-introduced forces can efficiently control the first mode response.