LAUSR

Abstract Monopole towers are slender structures usually employed for telecommunication, for meteorological measurements or for massive lighting poles. The structure is made-up of a vertical cantilever column constrained to the ground by a massive foundation. It is generally recognized that such slender structures, can be very sensitive to wind effects due to their dynamic characteristics. The paper focuses the attention on a prototype of a gyroscopic device conceived as an active stabilizer of such slender structures subjected to dynamic forces as wind or heart-quakes. In the present paper, a mathematical model of the gyroscopic device installed on a typical tower model has been implemented aiming to study its dynamic behavior. Free vibrations of the dynamic-model were analyzed in order to assess the effectiveness of the proposed apparatus. Results show that the use of a gyroscopic stabilizer allows, as expected, for an effective stiffening of the monopole tower and for a remarkable increase of its damping ratio with a consequent improvement of its dynamic performances.