Just recently, I began a project with Dr. Shamim Pakzad of Lehigh University on the design of a tuned mass damping system that would simulate the seismic behavior or a loft structure.  The project originated from a project that a friend of mine collaborated on with Michael Maltzan Architects: a studio built for Vincent Gallo, the Italian-American film director and actor.  The goal of the experiment is to subject a damper similar to what's shown in Figure 1 to a harmonic excitation.  Using an accelerometer, both natural frequency and period (inverse relationships) can be ascertained.

The damper will consist of two parts: (1) a single degree of freedom system (the base damper, similar that shown in Fig 1) and (2) a multiple degree of freedom system (the smaller damping system consisting of small aluminum masses, similar to that shown in Fig 2).  A hole will be cut in the base damper to allow the smaller MDOF system (the masses) to be inserted in (Fig 3).  This will simulate the actual dynamic response of a loft structure undergoing a sudden lateral vibration.

What we are measuring here is frequency, period and damping ratio.  A project like this is used to analyze how buildings that utilize loft structures, which are quite common for architects today to design, react in the event f an earthquake or excessive wind loadings.  The experiment is not meant to exactly represent every loft structure; only those that are inset in other, older existing structures are more reasonably represented here.

By mid-February, this data will be processed and analyzed.  A valid report will be edited and then posted on this blog.