Nonlinear structural behavior and vibration control of a double curved cable net under the dynamic excitations

Abstract The paper is regarding to the structural dynamics of a saddle shaped cable-net structure with two high points and two low points at the corners. The net cables are pre-stressed by stretching the four edge cables that are supported at the corner points. A series of parametric nonlinear dynamic analysis is utilized to evaluate the dynamic response of the system under the different structural masses and geometries, pretensions and alignments of cables and the amplitudes of dynamic excitation. An equivalent single-degree-of-freedom model is presented as a simplified method to estimate the dynamic response of the full finite element model. The simulation results show that the equivalent model can accurately estimate the displacement response of multi-degree-of-freedom model under dynamic excitation. Furthermore, a nonlinear active control algorithm is applied to decrease the structural response under the transient wind excitation and the results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.