When The Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Going: Skyhook Structural Control of a Suspended Bridge under Strong Wind Excitation

Herein, a model of an existing suspended bridge is developed at the numerical level in ANSYS finite element code starting from original data, and it is used to simulate the structural response under strong wind excitation. The proved Skyhook control is implemented for the bridge protection and compared with other different control strategies, with due attention to their feasibility and reliability. Their efficacy is shown and the factors contributing to their positive performance are highlighted. The control solutions here proposed are robust in the sense that they require less resources for their functioning, so that the failure of a device does not influence the efficacy of the remaining ones. Wind loading, corresponding to the extreme event, descend from generated 3D turbulent wind fields, non-homogeneous in space to consider the atmospheric boundary layer.