Nonlinear impact of negative stiffness dampers on stay cables

Negative stiffness dampers (NSDs) have been proven an efficient solution to vibration control of stay cables. Although previous studies usually assumed a linear negative stiffness behavior of NSDs, many negative stiffness devices produce negative stiffness with nonlinear behavior. This paper systematically evaluates the impact of nonlinearity in negative stiffness on vibration control performance for stay cables. A linearization method based on energy equivalent principle is proposed, and subsequently, the impact of two types of nonlinear stiffness, namely, displacement hardening and softening stiffness, is evaluated. Through the Hilbert transform (HT) of free vibration responses, the effects of nonlinear stiffness of an NSD on the modal frequencies, damping ratios and frequency response functions of a stay cable is also investigated. The HT analysis results validate the accuracy of the linearization method.