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Frame from Taipei 101 Damper movement on 12 May 08 Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Taipei 101 Damper movement on 12 May 08

phuaalvin
Demos
YouTube
4 HN users recommended this demo4 months2014–2022 score 4
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Recommended whenever skyscraper dampers come up, since it shows how huge the moving mass is.

Tourist footage of the 660-ton tuned mass damper in Taipei 101 swaying during tremors from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The damper hangs from the 92nd floor.

“There's a good video of it moving that gives you an idea of just how colossal these things are” (HN, 2014)

4 recommendations · Demos

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@sosuke Jun 2015 Recommends
on HN thread How Much Do Skyscrapers Actually Move?
This damper movement video was really incredible to see [this video] The small scale demos just don't do it justice. [link]
Shows a giant damper moving, more impressive than small demos
@FooHentai Jan 2022 Recommends
on HN thread The Hidden Engineering Protecting Getty Art from Earthquakes
Read more
At one of the datacenters I used to work in regularly the SAN engineers were always up for demonstrating the base isolation of their Hitachi storage array - The whole thing sat on a plate atop a ball-bearing pit, and could be shoved about a foot in any direction. Which they would invite you to do. Given the weight of the unit you'd never get it to budge more than a cm but they had videos of it during earthquakes showing it moving around the full range of motion. It was very 'v1' as far as base isolation goes and their newer equipment has more sophisticated protection, but it's an interesting field. On a larger scale the use of damping weight to protect entire buildings is amazing to see: [this video]
Shows damping weight protecting an entire building

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