Dive Brief:
- Researchers at Virginia Tech have developed a micro-sized, portable mass tuning damper weighing in at 275 pounds that can reduce structural vibrations in bridges and buildings by up to 75%.
- Virginia Tech professor of architecture Mehdi Setareh began work on the 2-foot-high, 15-inch-wide damper in 2014 with a grant from the National Science Foundation to counter the increased vibrations created by lighter weight building materials.
- Most modern mass dampers are extremely large, 1,000 square-foot, multi-ton devices requiring complex tuning. The portable unit developed by Virginia Tech can be tuned with a smartphone app.
Dive Insight:
As long as tall and skinny keeps getting the high-rise popularity vote, the need to mitigate structural vibrations from wind shear and foot traffic (not to mention adjacent vehicular traffic) will require mass damper technology. In Midtown Manhattan, residential towers punching through the 1,000-foot ceiling often feature needlelike aspect ratios of 1:23 or more, requiring huge mass dampers to offset vibrations.
Notably, the researchers on Setareh’s team at Virginia Tech are exploring how their portable damper could help offset lateral movement and vibrations created by a seismic event. While dampers have been successful in mitigating seismic waves, those units likewise weigh in at around 800 tons, like the futuristic, globe-shaped damper at 1,474-foot Taipei 101 supertall in Taiwan.
While Virginia Tech researchers did not reveal how the spring and plate system is able to achieve similar results with its drastically reduced profile, they said units or combinations of units could be implemented either during the design-build process or even after construction to counter vibrations.
