Seismic performance of tuned mass damper on Shazand Railway Bridge induced by train

Shazand Railway Bridge is located in Markazi province, Iran in north to south-west railway. The bridge consists of ten spans. In 1984, during Iran-Iraq war, that’s main span, which has a length of 72 m, was attacked and severely damaged. Eight month later, damaged span replaced with a steel deck. The deck is straight in plan, but the railway is curved and this causes eccentricity. Excessive vibration was observed during the train passage. Although the bridge was retrofitted in two stages, the problem has not been solved yet, and the trains’ speed should be reduced to around 10 km/h in order to avoid excessive vibration. The present study addressed the effectiveness of tuned mass damper (TMD) in reducing train-induced vibrations of Shazand Railway Bridge. A three dimensional finite-element model of the bridge is developed and dynamic time history analyses under train passage in both as-built and passively controlled with TMD are conducted. Sensitivity analyses are performed to demonstrate the effects of the damper parameters on structural response. The results show that considerable reduction in acceleration response of the bridge can be achieved by employing proper TMD