Decentralized Control of the Ansys Updated ASCE Benchmark Model

The ASCE benchmark on cable-stayed bridges has focused, in the last years, the interest of many specialists in the field of the structural control and the dynamic response of long span bridges. Starting from the structural model of the benchmark original statement, a refined version is developed in a commercial finite element environment (ANSYS) so as to include new aspects in the simulation of the stay cables dynamics, with respect to the coupled motion with the main girder, in the soil-structure interaction and in the numerical formulation adopting geometric nonlinearities. Analyses are carried out in the time domain, by using the earthquake records, as collected from the benchmark original statement, in a multiple support framework. The Bouc-Wen model is implemented on the refined bridge version for simulating seismic control devices in a passive and in a decentralized semi-active control scheme, for a comparison with the original statement results. This control device model is coded in an original external Fortran program, linked to the main numerical environment.