How a 730 ton steel ball protected Taiwan's tallest skyscraper, the Taipei 101, from the recend 7.4 magnitude earthquake. Structural engineers used a tuned mass damper system that counteracts the swaying of the building.
Just 1, just 1 ball. I have it's (well, not quite) other steel ball hanging from the rear view mirror of my massive car. Among with my fuzzy dice. Any gamblers?
Humans who find that ball 10,000 years from now: "We have no idea how this massive ball was produced or even what it was used for, so many believe it was created by aliens."
Important to note. The TMD on Taipei 101, actually has its brakes activated during any significant seismic activities as the excitation would be too great, it’s primarily only operational for heavy storms and minor earthquakes, but actually doesn’t contribute to any comfort in sizeable earthquakes
I just love it when there is a good correction bellow a video like this :) I wanted to say there is also a dampening device there, so its not just swaying of the mass
My first thought was what if it’s too large or a seismic event and the TMD ended up having the opposite effect, aiding in self destructing the building instead of helping
@@brandonmeens The brakes only restrict the range of motion and increase the amount of force required to move the ball. It still functions during earthquakes, just it's less effective at reducing wind sway while doing so.
Approximately 5.5 meters in diameter, the damper consists of 41 layers of 12.5 cm solid steel plating welded into a gold sphere mass, weighing 660 metric tons.
Ummmm First off, so cool to hear! Second it’s absolutely terrifying to see in this clip. How I’m the hellnis that just chills! I’m FREAKED when I see the inside of ships ballast tanks ( I think those are it) full of water and raging like some horror movie.
Same technology is used in cruise ships but with water, they move the water that store in the ship from one side to another during storm to counteract ships movements side to side.
Not sure with that water that you are saying. Yes there is water ballast tank on all types of ships, i guess an estabilizer is equipped on cruise ships. But in Marine engines, it has what they call compensator it is equipped in the Engine to reduce vibration during, especially at rough seas
The technology was quite famously used by Renault in their title winning 2005 and 2006 Formula 1 cars before it was banned. It made the cars so much more predictable over uneven terrain.
Motioneering did NOT engineer this TMD for earthquake resistance, it is strictly designed to prevent sway from wind loading. It may have a residual effect in earthquakes but that is not what it was designed for
@@testsalv4366 it would never worsen the sway. It will still have a positive effect in strong earthquakes, but the engineers have a separate seismic force resisting system for the structure.
I appreciate your channel. I wasn’t born with the gift you innately have to understand and *explain* engineering principles, but that’s why I love your channel!
The tuned mass damper work so well that back in 2006 renault f1 team use it in their cars. If u find footage of the cars driving over bumps, you'll notice just how smooth it rides over it
+ in addition the the hydraulics underneath there are steel cables holding it up so if the arms were to fail those cables would catch it. You can see them in the video
There’s overstrength factors used for critical components of seismic force resisting systems that multiply the force the components are designed for. Basically saying hey, if it has X amount of force on it actually, it needs to be designed for Y times that amount of force. So lots of redundancy and safety in the system.
One of the older Renault F1 cars also had this system. It was placed at the nose of the car and greatly helped the car to remain stable when riding the kerbs on the track
Everybody gangsta till the ball busts through the ceiling 😂 Edit: Wow! So many likes! Where do I start? I would like to thank my parents for raising me. RU-vid! Without you guys nothing would be possible, My wife shirley, all her support made this possible. Thank you god, for all you have given me...and last but not least I would like to thank you, the likers!
In short yes, but in detail, it was implemented to make the car more stable at bumps which allowed them to lower the car further which improved tyre grip
I learned about this in my vibrations class in college. Crucially, the ball is not a simple pendulum, it's mounted in place with a system of springs and dampers. The mass of the ball and the parameters of the springs and dampers are _tuned_ to match the resonant frequencies of the structure. This is done to prevent the building's sway from resonating with the oscillations of any applied forces, by transferring that oscillation into the ball.
Fun fact: Taipei 101 is also modeled after bamboo structure which is inherently strong, and during its construction survived an earthquake with only minimal damage. It is one of my favorite skyscrapers from an engineering and architectural perspective.
Neat videos. As a California engineer you probably don't have a lot of experience with hurricanes or tornados although you mention wind forces very often in your videos. Tsunamis (from earthquakes, hurricanes, nuclear explosions, etc) are catastrophic forces that maybe builders might consider too. In the 1992 Hurricane Andrew in Miami much of the building damage came from developers purposely evading building codes and not including joints tying roofs and walls together as well as other requirements. These are good videos for me a non-engineer.
I remember when that building was being built and there was a lot of press over that damper for being the largest of its type in the world and mounted so high up. Very nice to see it continue to work so well.
I tested this in the shower. I swayed left, and my steel balls seemed to deflect right relative to my body. I went right, and the seemed to go left. I can't say if it controlled my sway, but I am happy to keep trying, perhaps with more balls.
My dad actually helped design this by designing the cables and brackets for the damper. He was part of an engineering firm in Ontario that got commissioned to help the original firm with designing it.
In Mirror's edge catalyst you had to parkour climb one of these buildings (that was being built) in order to drop the tuned mass damper through the building to destroy it lol
It may act in low frequency, but in case of erratic high magnitude waves.. it can be disastrous in case the earthquake wave harmonize with this pendulum.. may bring the building down in seconds
American would never have this much preparation. Taiwan was hit was an even heavier 7.7 mag earthquake 25 years ago and they mandated that ALL buildings were built up to earthquake resistant code. the fact that they're only sitting at 10 casualties with such a dense population is insane
Because america never gets hit that hard by earthquakes? California is basically the only part of America that's at any severe earthquake risk, and there hasn't been a severe earthquake in 30 years anywhere in north america. And that last one was only a 6.7
California has been building with earthquakes in mind sense the big one (7.9) in 1906. 3,000 people died. When the Loma Linda (6.9) hit in 1989, 63 people died. We have quakes here every single day and Cali is about 10x the size of Taiwan. I think we are prepared.
Actually there's a comcast skyscraper in Philadelphia with a water tank at the top. It acts much like the pendulum in that it's meant to counteract forces that sway the building. It's designed for wind but should also work for earthquakes. This is not an uncommon solution either in America, They're called sloshing dampers.
@@russelldawkins9094 explain it then. Literally functions like an anchor or it somewhat functions like an anchor. Anchors or heavy balls protect structures from swaying at it adds weight which takes advantage of gravity to pull the building down making it artificially more heavier and having more force to the ground means it will have less sway. If your brain doesn't understand imagine you pushing something like a lego tower downward. No matter how much you blow it, it doesn't sway easily because there's a stronger force pushing it down than the Force pushing it horizontally aka the wind. If we're talking about earthquakes Imagine Panzer 8 Maus a 188 ton behemoth one of the heaviest tanks to ever existed compared to a human like you for example, no weight because of the lack of brains and when it earthquakes you move more or you sway more as you are more lighter and your mass is smaller than the Maus. THAT'S LITERALLY THE BALL being an added weight to the building. Anchors functions somewhat the same at it make the ship stay in place to prevent it from going anywhere. That huge ball functions the same it adds weight. So the building won't go flying on the air. Is basically an alternative to joints. If you have a better explanation do so I dare you. If not then stop.
@@russelldawkins9094 explain it then. Literally functions like an anchor or it somewhat functions like an anchor. Anchors or heavy balls protect structures from swaying at it adds weight which takes advantage of gravity to pull the building down making it artificially more heavier and having more force to the ground means it will have less sway. If your brain doesn't understand imagine you pushing something like a lego tower downward. No matter how much you blow it, it doesn't sway easily because there's a stronger force pushing it down than the Force pushing it horizontally aka the wind. If we're talking about earthquakes Imagine Panzer 8 Maus a 188 ton behemoth one of the heaviest tanks to ever existed compared to a human like you for example, no weight because of the lack of brains and when it earthquakes you move more or you sway more as you are more lighter and your mass is smaller than the Maus. THAT'S LITERALLY THE BALL being an added weight to the building. Anchors functions somewhat the same at it make the ship stay in place to prevent it from going anywhere. That huge ball functions the same it adds weight. So the building won't go flying on the air. Is basically an alternative to joints. If you have a better explanation do so I dare you. If not then stop talking.
@@russelldawkins9094 explain it then. Literally functions like an anchor or it somewhat functions like an anchor. Anchors or heavy balls protect structures from swaying at it adds weight which takes advantage of gravity to pull the building down making it artificially more heavier and having more force to the ground means it will have less sway. If your brain doesn't understand imagine you pushing something like a lego tower downward. No matter how much you blow it, it doesn't sway easily because there's a stronger force pushing it down than the Force pushing it horizontally aka the wind. If we're talking about earthquakes Imagine Panzer 8 Maus a 188 ton behemoth one of the heaviest tanks to ever existed compared to a human like you for example, no weight because of the lack of brains and when it earthquakes you move more or you sway more as you are more lighter and your mass is smaller than the Maus. THAT'S LITERALLY THE BALL being an added weight to the building. Anchors functions somewhat the same at it make the ship stay in place to prevent it from going anywhere. That huge ball functions the same it adds weight. So the building won't go flying on the air. Is basically an alternative to joints. If you have a better explanation do so I dare you. If not then stop talking.
@@russelldawkins9094 explain it then. Literally functions like an anchor or it somewhat functions like an anchor. Anchors or heavy balls protect structures from swaying at it adds weight which takes advantage of gravity to pull the building down making it artificially more heavier and having more force to the ground means it will have less sway. If your brain doesn't understand imagine you pushing something like a lego tower downward. No matter how much you blow it, it doesn't sway easily because there's a stronger force pushing it down than the Force pushing it horizontally aka the wind. If we're talking about earthquakes Imagine Panzer 8 Maus a 188 ton behemoth one of the heaviest tanks to ever existed compared to a human like you for example, no weight because of the lack of brains and when it earthquakes you move more or you sway more as you are more lighter and your mass is smaller than the Maus. THAT'S LITERALLY THE BALL being an added weight to the building. Anchors functions somewhat the same at it make the ship stay in place to prevent it from going anywhere. That huge ball functions the same it adds weight. So the building won't go flying on the air. Is basically an alternative to joints. If you have a better explanation do so I dare you. If not then stop talking.
When my class was seeing video from the recent taiwan earthquake, a building under construction seemed to be taking a lot of damage (super short clip, so hard to tell). this led to a discussion on counterweights for earthquakes..
Other buildings cater their architecture to this by placing a huge gaping in the middle or even giant water tanks to battle strong wings. Pretty cool seeing all these during a tour in the windy city of Chicago!
I actually had to do a school project on earthquakes recently and I decided to use taipei 101 as an example of how people have to adapt to these earthquakes to were they live
Tuned mass dampers are amazing, they're not just used in this situation. They're everywhere that vibration is an issue. I have a 21yr old car, do my own maintenence and repairs, and there's quite a few. Just weird cubes of steel, insulated by rubber and mounted to something that has some vibrational resonance complaint.
The fact that I had a pendulum project for my physics class and I understood this makes me feel so proud that I paid attention to my physics class (I never pay attention to my classes lol)
As i recall a similar damper system was in an old theater in one of the Clairemont McKenna Colleges in California. Sometime in the 1970s they felt the need to destroy the old structure because it was not seismically safe. They went into the attic…and found a series of counter weight pendulums created out of huge stones. The structure was saved…and hopefully though it has been 50 years since i saw it…it is still standing.
