Developing Active Mass Dampers to enable post-COVID19 use of modular construction in vibration sensitive facilities

在COVID-19危机期间，出现了一个重大问题，即医疗服务的积压已被推迟，而NHS及其工作人员可以理解地专注于大流行造成的直接威胁。现在，我们正在摆脱最严重的封锁限制，NHS迫切需要处理积压的问题，它必须在社交距离增加的限制下这样做，因此对治疗空间的要求也增加了。需要一个快速发展保健建筑的方案，该方案已经启动。模块化建筑是一种高质量、工厂化生产、快速建造和高度可持续的现代建筑形式，将为快速建造医疗保健新建筑的需求提供关键解决方案。我们正在与SEISMIC-II建筑公司联盟合作，他们一直在为学校开发模块化建筑，以紧急调整他们的设计，以适应比学校更严格的振动标准的医疗设施。这可以通过使用主动质量阻尼器（AMD）技术非常有效地完成-这是一项令人兴奋的新技术，可以开发具有出色振动性能的高效，低成本和环境可持续性建筑。振动性能对医疗建筑至关重要。振动会干扰建筑物的居住者，特别是生病和脆弱的病人，也会影响敏感的医疗设备的性能。这是过去影响医疗保健和实验室建筑的一个问题，包括传统建筑和模块化建筑。AMD是一种自主设备，可以感知地板振动并产生机械力来抵消它们。它们可以被概念化为“地板主动降噪耳机”。它们比以前使用的地板振动控制方法更有效，并且有可能为提供更高效和可持续的建筑（即减少材料消耗）同时仍然保持出色的振动性能的难题提供解决方案。从长远来看，AMD技术将为建筑行业提供急需的竞争优势，因为它是一种先进的技术，可以在建筑性能和效率方面实现飞跃。它将增加采用更可持续的结构形式，如约束层木材和模块化建筑。建筑和施工约占全球二氧化碳排放量的40%，因此对环境的影响可能是巨大的。将该技术推向市场将产生重要的新经济活动，创造工程和制造业就业机会，并为采用该技术的英国工程和建筑公司提供新的商业优势。总之，该项目将为市场带来新的先进技术，为快速建设新的急需的医疗设施做出重大贡献。它还将为英国建筑业在世界舞台上提供新的竞争优势，并将进一步发展英国急需的高价值制造业，在急需的时候提供就业机会。

During the COVID-19 crisis, a significant problem has emerged of a backlog in medical treatments that have been postponed whilst the NHS and its staff understandably focused on the immediate threats caused by the pandemic. Now that we are exiting from the most severe constraints of the lockdown, the NHS urgently needs to deal with the backlog, and it must do this within the constraints of increased social distancing and hence increased requirements for treatment space. A programme of rapid healthcare building development is required and has already been initiated. Modular buildings, which are a high quality, factory produced, rapidly constructed and highly sustainable form of modern construction, will provide a key solution to the need for rapid construction of new buildings for healthcare. We are working with the SEISMIC-II consortium of construction companies, who have been developing modular buildings for schools, to urgently adapt their designs for healthcare facilities which have much more stringent vibration criteria than schools. This can be done very efficiently and effectively through the use of active mass damper (AMD) technology - a new and exciting technology that allows the development of efficient, low cost and environmentally sustainable buildings that have excellent vibration performance. Vibration performance is of crucial importance for medical buildings. Vibrations can disturb building occupants, particularly sick and vulnerable patients, and can also affect the performance of sensitive healthcare equipment. This is a problem that has affected healthcare and laboratory buildings in the past, including both those constructed traditionally and those made from modular construction. AMDs are autonomous devices that sense floor vibrations and generate mechanical forces to cancel them out. They can be conceptualised as 'active noise cancelling headphones for floors'. They are significantly more effective than previously used methods of floor vibration control and have the potential to provide a solution to the conundrum of providing more efficient and sustainable buildings (i.e. with reduced material consumption) whilst still maintaining excellent vibration performance. In the longer term, AMD technology will provide the construction sector with a much-needed competitive advantage as it is an advanced technology that can provide a step-change in building performance and efficiency. It will increase the uptake of more sustainable structural forms, such as constrained layer timber and modular construction. Buildings and construction account for approximately 40% of global CO2 emissions so the environmental impact is potentially huge. Bringing the technology to market will generate significant new economic activity, create engineering and manufacturing jobs and provide a new commercial advantage to UK engineering and construction firms who adopt it. In summary, this project will bring a new and advanced technology to market, contributing significantly to the efforts to rapidly build new urgently required healthcare facilities for the post-COVID-19 world. It will also provide the construction industry in the UK with a new competitive advantage on the world stage and will develop further much needed high-value manufacturing in the UK, providing employment at a time when it is so badly needed.