---

Damping of a full-scale cable with a pair of passive–on magnetorheological (MR) dampers was tested. A cable of 215.58m long with the first mode frequency of 0.658Hz was tensioned horizontally in cable prefabrication factory. Two MR dampers were attached to the cable in an angle in the plane perpendicularly to the cable axis in 5m length from the cable anchorage. The applied voltage level was 0V, 3V, 6V and 9V. The cable was excited manually to a certain amplitude level for the first three modes of vertical vibration. The free decay curves of the cable were then recorded. The damping of the cable was calculated from the measured anti-node vibration amplitude. The damping of the free cable was also tested for reference. It was found that the damping of the cable is still low when MR dampers were no voltage strengthened. However, the damping of the cable increased greatly for the other with MR damper cases compared to free cable. Further study showed that the damping of the cable with MR dampers were strongly depended on applied voltage level and vibration amplitude. There is an optimal damping value when MR damper is voltage strengthened. The dependence of the optimum damping on applied voltage level, vibration amplitude and vibration mode was further analyzed.