The enormous steel ball you see in the photos (and the incredible video below) is the world’s largest ‘tuned mass damper’ and sits near the top of the world’s largest completed skyscraper on earth, Taipei 101 in taiwan. the idea behind a tuned mass damper is quite simple: as a building sways (resulting from high winds, earthquakes etc), its tuned mass damper, essentially a finely tuned and ridiculously heavy pendulum, will move in opposition to the structure’s oscillations and minimise any movement. It can reduce the building’s movement by up to 40%.
On may 12th, as the horrendous earthquake occurred in china’s Sichuan province, tremors were felt for miles, including in Taipei 101. Youtube user phuaalvin was in the building at the time and said that as the building started to shake, dozens of people ran to the damper to watch it in action. here’s the video he took…
Incredible video. I have seen photos of these before before but never video of them moving- much less in circumstances like the Earthquake. Again, simply great video.
Incredible video. I have seen photos of these before before but never video of them moving- much less in circumstances like the Earthquake. Again, simply great video.
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