TMD design for seismic vibration control of high-pier bridges in Sichuan–Tibet Railway and its influence on running trains

Sichuan–Tibet Railway plays a vital role in China’s transportation system by connecting Tibet and Central China, whose design and construction are extremely difficult due to numerous seismic zones and deep valleys along the railway line. This paper systematically presents a framework to control seismic vibration of T-beam bridges with high-piers in Sichuan–Tibet Railway using tuned mass dampers (TMDs). Firstly, a finite element model of the widely used high-pier bridge is established to reveal its vibration modes subject to earthquakes. On this basis, optimal installation locations and optimal parameters of the TMDs are determined. Then, vibration reduction effects of the designed TMDs on the high-pier bridge subject to actual earthquake samples are investigated and compared with that of using some other vibration absorption measures. Finally, a detailed train-track-bridge dynamic model with attached TMDs is established to study the effects of the designed TMDs on the seismic responses of the running trains. The results indicate that, for the high-pier T-beam bridges, the first bending vibration mode of the high-pier is most likely to be excited by earthquakes, which should be restrained. With the designed optimal parameters, the attached TMDs are effective to control seismic vibrations of the concerned high-pier bridges. Tuned mass damper is the best one among all the investigated measures to absorb vibrations subject to earthquakes from the perspective of vibration absorption performance, installation and maintenance.