Issues

The cover image depicts Taipei 101 in the early morning light. At the time of its official opening (October 2004), the 101 stories, 508 m tall (including the top spire) skyscraper was the worlds’ tallest building. Aside from its iconic appearance, Taipei 101 features a built-in mass damper that is intended to counteract (dampen) any sway of the building due to seismic waves and strong wind loads. The damper is a 660 t steel weight, suspended between floors #92–#87 in the center of the building, and can be visited from an indoor observatory. Taipei 101 is studies in the paper “Dynamic characteristics of TAIPEI 101 skyscraper from rotational and translation seismometers’ by Chen et al. (2023; this issue) who measure the model eigenfrequencies of Taipei 101 in rotation and translation and investigate how these eigenfrequencies change with environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, wind speed).

Image credit: iStock.com/Sean3810