The effect of damping in evaluating tensile force of cable based on measuring frequency

Abstract The cable vibration regularly appears in operating structures and harms the performance and service life of the structure. Therefore, it is necessary to develop solutions to control and predict the condition of structures, especially cable structure types such as extradosed bridges, suspension bridges, cable-stayed bridges, bridges with post-tensioned cables, signal towers, etc. In inspecting cable structures, estimating the tension acting on the cable based on vibration plays a significant role, owing to the damping of cables. The vibration measurement through accelerometers is more commonly used in construction buildings, because of its flexible implementation at low cost, and good accuracy while still ensuring construction safety standards, so practical formulas are proposed and improved accuracy for the problem of determining cable tension for different cable structures without considering damping. In this study, the continuous cables have been mathematically modeled to assess the tension considering the damping parameters of the cable.