Cable-stayed bridges require a careful consideration of the lateral force exerted by the deck on the towers
under strong earthquakes. This work explores the seismic response of cable-stayed bridges with yielding
metallic dampers composed of triangular plates (TADAS) that connect the deck with the supports in the
transverse direction. A design method based on an equivalent single-degree of freedom approximation is
proposed. This is proved valid for conventional cable-stayed bridges with 200 and 400 m main spans, but
not 600 m. The height of the plates is chosen to (1) achieve a yielding capacity that limits the maximum force
transmitted from the deck to the towers, and to (2) control the hysteretic energy that the dampers dissipate by
defining their design ductility. In order to select the optimal ductility and the damper configuration, a multi-
objective response factor that accounts for the energy dissipation, peak damper displacement and low-cycle
fatigue is introduced. The design method is applied to cable-stayed bridges with different spans and deck-
support connections.
The results show that the dissipation by plastic deformation in the dampers prevents
significant damage in the towers of the short-to-medium span bridges under the extreme seismic actions
.
However, the transverse response of the towers in the bridge with 600 m span is less sensitive to the TADAS
dampers.