New Approach for Vibration Suppression through Restrictors on Towering Steel Columns with Supporting Frame

Towering steel column with supporting frame is a typical equipment in chemical process engineering. Here, displacement restrictors are proposed to restrict the displacement of the towering and slender equipment while making the column to be structurally nonlinear and statically indeterminate. This study investigated on along-wind and cross-wind vibration characteristics of such equipment with the restrictors experimentally and numerically. A field test is carried out to measure the natural frequency and damping ratio of the 42.5-meter-high equipment vibrating in the wind, which is the prototype of the experimental model. A noncontact excitation system was applied on the experimental model to simulate the wind loads. The displacements and strains of the experimental model are collected under different frame types by changing the heights of displacement restrictors. The numerical simulation and experimental results showed that the height of displacement restrictors has a great influence on the vibration intensity of the equipment. An optimum location, recommended as about 40% of the height, could decrease the vibration intensity and enhance the safety of the equipment. Based on the results, a simplified formula in which the natural frequency and the damping ratio dominate the dynamic behavior of along-wind and cross-wind vibration, respectively, is derived from multi-degrees-of-freedom system. It could be furtherly utilized to predict the amplitude ratio of two structures and select a better design featuring an efficient vibration suppression performance. This work presents an important design guide to the frame-supporting towering process equipment and is of great significance to an economical and safety design.