The giant ball inside skyscrapers keeps them from vibrations

It's imperceptible to the human eye, but tall buildings swaying slightly in the wind. And the higher the skyscraper, the greater the amplitude of its kolebaniy.Sayt learned that in order to minimize this rocking, the engineers at the top of the giant buildings set counterweights called tuned mass dampers - tuned mass dampers (TMD). In most cases, TMD shock absorbers represent a giant ball of steel or concrete, weighing up to 300 - 800 tons! This ball is suspended on springs and pistons at the top of the buildings and seamlessly balances when you change the angle of the building. Essentially, his task is to maintain the center of mass of a skyscraper.





Example: on a windy day, the top of a skyscraper height of 300 meters can deviate by 10 centimeters apart. Sometimes tenants such tall buildings even begins to rock from these fluctuations - they develop motion sickness. Therefore tuned mass dampers TMD, minimizing vibration amplitude make the movement of the building is almost invisible to its residents.





In 2004, the tallest building in the world was the 509-meter Taipei 101 Tower in China. Inside this building is set in a huge contrast to the world, whose characteristics amaze! Its diameter is equal to - 5.5 meters, and weight - 728 tons. The ball is able to dampen vibrations of a skyscraper, even if the wind speed is 240 km / h.



In fact, any skyscraper can be seen as a giant tuning fork. If it hit hard, for example, a gust of wind or an earthquake, the building vibrates at a given frequency. In this case, the counterweight TMD starts to move with the same frequency as that of a building, but in the opposite direction. This mechanism does not remove the vibration at all, but keeps it under control.









via fshoke.com/2015/09/28/gigantskij-shar-vnutri-neboskrebov-uderzhivaet-ix-ot-kolebanij/