Abstract：Damping of taut cable with attached bilinear viscous damper is analyzed in this paper. The equations of motion of the cable/damper system are derived by using Galerkin method. The free vibration decay curves of the cable are derived by applying Runge-Kutta-Felhberg (RKF) algorithm. The damping is calculated based on energy loss in one cycle of vibration. The parameter study is carried out to study the influence of the first damping coefficient, the second damping coefficient and the relieve velocity. It is found that bilinear viscous damper may have advantage over linear damper. Simplified design formulations based on equivalent energy dissipation in one cycle of vibration are further proposed and compared with numerical results.
2010, Vol. 29 
