Abstract Summary
A new circle-shaped building is being built as an extension to the existing Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, part of the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway. The expansion will provide new exhibition areas, improving both the visitor experience and the physical conditions for the objects on display. Today, the museum has an average of 530 000 visitors per year and a floor area of 4000 m2. With the new extension, the area will be increased by 9300 m2, and the visitor capacity to more than 1 million per year. The museum houses the world’s largest collections of artefacts from the Viking era and holds the best-preserved Viking ships in the world. While smaller artefacts such as fabrics, jewelries and wooden objects of moderate size are moved off the premises and stored at a safe location, the three Viking ships and three sledges in the collection will be secured onsite during the construction work. The ships are too large to move off site, and the sledges are considered too fragile. Large and stiff steel rigs are mounted around the ships and vibration isolated at their current position. The sledges are moved to a specially constructed room located as far away from the construction site as possible, yet in the existing building, and conjointly placed on a vibration isolated stiff and heavy skid. Prior to the relocation of the sledges their support systems are improved to better cope with the dynamic and static loads introduced during the relocation and the following period of construction work. The mitigations are also designed with the long-term preservation strategy and future display situation in mind, with regards to both mechanical properties and aesthetics. Finite element models are developed as a tool for understanding the sledges’ static and dynamical behavior. The models are used to design effective mitigations applied to the sledges’ existing support systems. The models are established using highly detailed geometry 3D scans. They are dynamically calibrated using advanced vibration measurements identifying the sledges’ eigenfrequencies with corresponding mode shapes, and dynamic response to excitations. The models are also calibrated using load deformation measurements with controlled loads applied to the sledges’ support systems.
