3 ms·

I don't recall him mentioning how the viscosity of the fluid changes it's effectiveness, but I imagine it would. For reduced maintenance costs (prevent algae g

by chiph 1y ago

I don't recall him mentioning how the viscosity of the fluid changes it's effectiveness, but I imagine it would. For reduced maintenance costs (prevent algae growth) they probably use mineral oil, not blue water.

kllrnohj 1y ago
Surely some biocide or glycol or whatever is going to be a lot cheaper than using mineral oil? This is solidly north of a hundred thousand gallons after all, right? Especially since they're already going to have plumbed water in the building anyway, so they wouldn't need to transport drums and drums of whatever liquid is chosen if it's not water?
- exmadscientist 1y ago
  300-400 tons of mineral oil is not expensive on industrial scales. And biocides are not as effective as you'd hope (look up biofilms for one particularly annoying example). So mineral oil is definitely a viable option. But its lower density means that water is probably going to win anyway.
  - kllrnohj 1y ago
    Quick search says around $1,600 USD per ton for mineral oil? Taipei 101's damper is 660 tons. No idea how that compares to a fluid damper, but if we assume similar tonnage requirements that'd work out to somewhere in the range of $1M USD in mineral oil. Granted that's, what, 0.05% of the building cost? So in that sense "not a lot", sure, but compared to the almost nothing that it'd cost for an equivalent amount of industrial water, that still affords a lot of alternative solutions. Especially since it just needs to slosh around, does it even matter if stuff grows in it? It's not like there's going to be sunlight, either, so there wouldn't be much growth regardless right?
giantg2 1y ago
Fill it with electro-ferric shock fluid
- imglorp 1y ago
  That's a great idea. The Action Labs guy just demonstrated how some of those fluids can vary their viscosity in response to a magnetic field, used in some vehicle active suspensions. Similar application!
bluGill 1y ago
They want something that isn't a fire hazzard. And water can be connetted to the fire control system thus serving an additional purpose.

by chiph 1y ago

kllrnohj 1y ago

Surely some biocide or glycol or whatever is going to be a lot cheaper than using mineral oil? This is solidly north of a hundred thousand gallons after all, right? Especially since they're already going to have plumbed water in the building anyway, so they wouldn't need to transport drums and drums of whatever liquid is chosen if it's not water?

exmadscientist 1y ago
300-400 tons of mineral oil is not expensive on industrial scales. And biocides are not as effective as you'd hope (look up biofilms for one particularly annoying example). So mineral oil is definitely a viable option. But its lower density means that water is probably going to win anyway.
- kllrnohj 1y ago
  Quick search says around $1,600 USD per ton for mineral oil? Taipei 101's damper is 660 tons. No idea how that compares to a fluid damper, but if we assume similar tonnage requirements that'd work out to somewhere in the range of $1M USD in mineral oil. Granted that's, what, 0.05% of the building cost? So in that sense "not a lot", sure, but compared to the almost nothing that it'd cost for an equivalent amount of industrial water, that still affords a lot of alternative solutions. Especially since it just needs to slosh around, does it even matter if stuff grows in it? It's not like there's going to be sunlight, either, so there wouldn't be much growth regardless right?

giantg2 1y ago

Fill it with electro-ferric shock fluid

imglorp 1y ago
That's a great idea. The Action Labs guy just demonstrated how some of those fluids can vary their viscosity in response to a magnetic field, used in some vehicle active suspensions. Similar application!

bluGill 1y ago

They want something that isn't a fire hazzard. And water can be connetted to the fire control system thus serving an additional purpose.