Taipei 101 Damper movement on 12 May 08
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended whenever skyscraper dampers come up, since it shows how huge the moving mass is.
What it 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.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 4 different months, 2014 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Recommends jwise0 · 2014-04 · on “The Design Flaw That Almost Wiped Out an NYC Skyscraper”
The first I had heard of a tuned mass damper was in the installation on Taipei 101. There's a good video of it moving that gives you an idea of just how colossal these things are: [this video]
Recommends sosuke · 2015-06 · on “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]
Recommends prewett · 2017-05 · on “Server room with seismic isolation floor in Japan earthquake disaster [video]”
It's not a DC, but Taipei 101 has a mass damper, and there's a video of it swaying during an earthquake. Really impressive how much that things moves! [this video]
Recommends FooHentai · 2022-01 · on “The Hidden Engineering Protecting Getty Art from Earthquakes”
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: [VI