Renato Vitaliani, former full professor of Construction Techniques at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Padua, tested the maxi-pendulum designed with the Venetian company Fip Mec. Thanks to him, Taipei 101 did not collapse during the earthquake that shook the country on April 3
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There is a bit of Italy in Taiwan too. The Taipei 101 skyscraper, the eleventh tallest in the world, resisted the very strong earthquake that hit the East Asian island on April 3 thanks to a maxi sphere designed and built by a Venetian company. This is Fip Mec of Selvazzano (Padua), a leading company in the production of structural supports, anti-seismic devices, products for tunnels and accessories for civil and infrastructure engineering. Among the testers stands out the name of Renato Vitaliani, civil engineer, father of the sphere who saved the building.
How the sphere works
The Tuned Mass Damper, this is the name of the maxi-sphere, is actually more similar to a pendulum. As the creator Renato Vitaliani explains to Corriere della Sera it works just like “a pendulum clock: a mega sphere of 660 tons of steel is placed at a certain height of the tower and attached to the top with cables. When the tower moves one way, the absorber moves the other, just like a pendulum would. In fact it balances the force released by the earthquake or the wind.” Furthermore, Vitaliani continues to add, “energy dissipators have been positioned around this mass, something comparable to the shock absorbers we use for cars”. In essence, this complex system allows shocks to be absorbed and oscillations to be counterbalanced.
see also
Taiwan earthquake, collapses and people fleeing: videos of the quake
Who is Renato Vitaliani
Graduated in civil engineering with honors, specializing in transport, from the University of Padua in 1971. He was full professor of Construction Techniques at the Faculty of Engineering of the same university. Vitaliani’s CV is full of companies, but the one that stands out is Fpi Mec of Selvazzano, in the province of Padua, with which he created the Tuned Mass Damper that saved the skyscraper in Taiwan from the earthquake.
