Structures subjected to random vibration environments are routinely evaluated for stress using the von Mises criterion, which condenses the full multiaxial stress state into a single scalar suited for comparison against a yield or fatigue allowable. But von Mises stress is a nonlinear function of… Read more
Image Credit What Solar Trackers Do A solar tracker is a motorized mounting system that rotates photovoltaic (PV) modules to follow the sun across the sky, keeping the panel surface more nearly perpendicular to the incoming sunlight than a fixed-tilt rack can. The payoff is… Read more
Introduction Nearly every utility-scale wind turbine built today has three blades. This was not inevitable. One-blade and two-blade machines were built and fielded in the 1980s and 1990s, and multi-blade rotors dominated the farm windmill era for a century. The three-blade configuration won a genuine… Read more
Introduction Researchers at the University of Southampton and The British Museum have applied two familiar tools from the aerospace shock and vibration world — the shock response spectrum (SRS) and the vibration response spectrum (VRS) — to a very different problem: deciding whether fragile museum… Read more
Structural Dynamics Series — Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), McNamara Terminal, Concourse A DTW McNamara Terminal, Concourse A. The exposed roof structure combines arched panels, downward flying struts, and lateral tie rods. Introduction The McNamara Terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport opened on… Read more
A new paper from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences proposes an elegantly simple field method — add mass, watch the resonance shift — to quantify how structurally integrated a battery pack is in a vehicle. The modal mass estimate at its core draws on a… Read more
The data center construction boom has made a 24/7 mechanical plant into everyone’s new neighbor — and the acoustics run in both directions: noise radiating out to the community, and noise and vibration attacking the equipment inside. Driven by cloud computing and AI, data centers… Read more
ETH Zurich researchers have built a quantum chip whose working memory is not electromagnetic — it is mechanical. For those of us who work in structural dynamics, this is modal analysis pushed to its ultimate limit. In July 2026, the Hybrid Quantum Systems Group at… Read more
Fuse Pins: The Structural Fuse That Holds the Engine On Jet engine pylons contain deliberately weakened pins designed to shed the engine under extreme overload — and two Boeing 747 freighter accidents showed what happens when the fuse itself fails from fatigue. An electrical fuse… Read more
Wilcoxon Sensing Technologies 4-20 mA vibration transmitters and iT301 intelligent transmitter. Image courtesy of Wilcoxon Sensing Technologies Machinery Vibration Monitoring: Alarm & Trip Protection How permanently installed vibration sensors decide when to warn the operator — and when to shut the machine down. Rotating machinery… Read more