Visual Mock-Up of a Façade, Part 3

Part 3 in The Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard Series: Visual Mock-Up of a Façade, switches gears to another type of mock-up being coordinated around the same time – The Performance Mock-Up

The Performance mock-up is how we tested a portion of the unitized curtain wall against air, water, wind, and seismic forces!

If that doesn’t sound cool, just look at this airplane propeller that is used to create the wind forces for these tests:

A sprinkler rack is placed close to the face of the curtain wall to simulate rain:

Both rain and wind are simulated for the dynamic air and water test:

The chamber behind is sealed and monitored throughout various tests. In the uniform structural design load test it is positively and then negatively pressured and strain gauges record the deflection throughout the chamber.  

A hydraulic cylinder crank was used on the supporting structural frame to twist it out of shape. That was how the seismic (interstory differential) horizontal and vertical movements were simulated.

The success of the Performance Mock-up was a huge step towards fabrication (and later installation) of the unitized curtain wall panels!

Related Posts in this Series

Visual Mock-Up of a Facade Part 1

Visual Mock-Up of a Facade Part 2