Piezoelectric Tuned Mass Damper Designed for Footbridges

Piezoelectric Tuned Mass Damper Designed for Footbridges

Aesthetic appearance and a design that blends well with the environment are some important considerations when designing footbridges. Nowadays, footbridges are often designed to be lightweight long-span structures that lead to low vibrational frequency and low damping behavior. Pedestrian load is the main factor that causes footbridges to vibrate. The resonant phenomenon appears when the frequency of the structure falls in the region of the frequencies of the pedestrian load. Adding a tuned mass damper (TMD) on the structure is a common and effective way to reduce the vibration while maintaining the aesthetic appearance of the footbridge. Although a conventional TMD can effectively reduce the vibration, the vibrational energy is dissipated. With the aim to utilize the vibrational energy, we propose a new type of TMD, the piezoelectric tuned mass damper (Piezo-TMD), which converts the structural vibrational energy to electricity. In this article, we take as an example the Da-Yuan Bridge at Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts located in New Taipei City and discuss the working of the Piezo-TMD.