Week 8

This week our group did preliminary testing for our final tests and were pleased by what we observed.  The first suggestion for our tests was to use a hair-dryer to act as wind to simulate wind on the tower.  The hair-dryer was able to move our structure but it was hard to get any data on the differences our simulation of the tuned mass dampening system mad.  The air blown would only shift our tower and there was very little difference with and without the modification.  It also did not test at all the swaying of the towers which is what we are trying to limit, since the entire tower was shifted we could not calculate the shift in center of gravity.  

Figure 1:  Hair dryer test

Our following tests proved to be more useful.  The concept of the test is to show that the shift in weight in the building will help the building stay more rigid and sway less while horizontal loads are applied (wind).  The idea is that the tower will be unrooted and raised up while it is on a platform resting on a thin ledge.  We will measure the height of the platform at the moment the tower flips (we will take three measurements of each scenario and average the distances for most accurate results).  Since the tower is not rooted by its foundation in our test we are only testing the structure's willingness to shift its center of gravity as a result of horizontal wind loads.  Based on our research our hypothesis is that when more weight is situated on the side of the acing force, the structure's center of gravity will be harder to shift (and thus tip) and therefore will sway less when it is truly grounded.  We will do these measurements with the model alone and then the model with 8,6,4,2, and 1 washers attached to the tower.  We will repeat this with the washers on the other side of the acting force.  We will repeat this entire process with the washers on the second tower, since the structure is not symmetrical.  Through our preliminary tests this week this process has shown good results that should support our thesis.  In Lab on week 9 we will conduct the experiment in its entirety so we can make accurate measurements and formulate useful data.  

Figure 2:  Tower with washers simulating tuned mass dampening system

Figure 3:  Testing horizontal force it can withstand at first angle

Figure 4:  Testing horizontal force it can withstand at another angle