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In order to make sure of the safety of a long-span suspension bridge under earthquake action, this paper aims to study the traveling wave effect of the bridge under multi-support excitation and optimize the semi-active control schemes based on magneto-rheological (MR) dampers considering reference index as well as economical efficiency.

The finite element model of the long-span suspension bridge is established in MATLAB and ANSYS software, which includes different input currents and semi-active control conditions. Six apparent wave velocities are used to conduct non-linear time history analysis in order to consider the seismic response influence in primary members under traveling wave effect. The parameters α and β, which are key parameters of classical linear optimal control algorithm, are optimized and analyzed taking into account five different combinations to obtain the optimal control scheme.

When the apparent wave velocity is relatively small, the influence on the structural response is oscillatory. Along with the increase of the apparent wave velocity, the structural response is gradually approaching the response under uniform excitation. Semi-active control strategy based on MR dampers not only restrains the top displacement of main towers and relative displacement between towers and girders, but also affects the control effect of internal forces. For classical linear optimal control algorithm, the values of two parameters (α and β) are 100 and 8 × 10–6 considering the optimal control effect and economical efficiency.

The emphasis of this study is the traveling wave effect of the triple-tower suspension bridge under multi-support excitation. Meanwhile, the optimized parameters of semi-active control schemes using MR dampers have been obtained, providing relevant references in improving the seismic performance of three-tower suspension bridge.