DIY Roller vibratory conversion

   / DIY Roller vibratory conversion #11  
When I worked at the newspaper they bought an old theater next door and tore it down. Removed the foundation in entirety. Then started filling in lifts of dirt and compacting it with a large vibratory roller. The hole was a good 15-20' deep. While sitting in sour work area, which was right next to the construction, 3 floors up, as the roller started coming towards the outside of our building, you could feel the building start to vibrate. As it got closer, if you put your teeth together, they'd start to vibrate. Your vision would get blurry.

And the weirdest thing of all is that the 8' fluorescent tubes on the ceiling fixtures would start to oscillate at some harmonic of the vibration and it looked like the glass tubes were bowing about 2" in the middle!

It looked like the rubber pencil trick!

 
   / DIY Roller vibratory conversion #12  
I worked with a guy that had been a plant manager for a recently built GE facility.

They had installed a 200 HP piston air compressor to supply the plant with air.
Well, EVERY time the compressor turned on,, a home 8 blocks away would get the crazy shakes,,,

Pictures fell off the walls, dishes slid out of cabinets,,

After about 10 complaints, the company looked into it,
apparently, there was a bedrock underground connection between the foundation of the air compressor, and the foundation of the home.
The vibration passed everything in between,, as those buildings and homes sat on dirt.
Nels said they had to buy a GIANT spring carried vibration isolating base.

He told me the story, as he was wondering if I was going to have a similar problem.
I was installing a 50HP vacuum pump,, that was anchored to the foundation of this facility.
We did not have a problem, with my install,, luckily,,
The building we were in was a retired furniture warehouse,, not exactly "Industrial Hardened"...
 
 
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