The view of Taipei from the 508 meters high Taipei 101, one of the world’s tallest and most expensive buildings is breath-taking. But turn around and you’ll see something equally fascinating: a huge yellow sphere, suspended from eight steel cables in the centre of the building between Floors 87 and 91.

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Large civil structures are vulnerable to wind and earthquakes. A strong wind will make the upper levels of the building sway back and forth. This yellow sphere is a device designed to counter these effects of wind and seismic activity on the skyscraper. This is called a tuned mass damper and it weighs 728 ton. A tuned mass damper consists of two components, a very heavy mass, and a shock-absorbing suspension mechanism.

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Somni was given the opportunity to install low frequency fiber optic accelerometers to monitor the vibrations and movements of this mass. By monitoring the vibrations, information is extracted to identify changes in the behaviour of the structure which is indicative of a developing fault. But monitoring the vibrations also gives information about the way the structure reacts to wind or for example an earthquake. Therefore, condition monitoring is a major part of predictive maintenance and increases knowledge about the behaviour of the structure