Experimental study on hybrid control of multimodal cable vibrations

The effectiveness of a hybrid control policy in mitigating the linear and non-linear multimodal cable vibrations is investigated by means of a numerical analysis and a campaign of laboratory tests. The proposed control method is a hybrid solution combining wrapped shape memory alloy wires and an open-loop actuation. By operating in this way, a robust and economical control strategy is obtained which overcomes the damper/actuator localization and the state-tracking difficulties that significantly impair the overall control effectiveness of most of the control solutions already investigated in the literature. The proposed approach has shown, in a separate study, promising vibration mitigation capabilities when the motion was essentially dominated by the first in-plane mode. Here, the capability of the hybrid control policy in mitigating also the nonlinear vibrations of the second in-plane mode is under specific investigation.