Monitoring vibration

I am an archaeological conservator at the Bible Lands Museum,
Jerusalem, Israel We are currently monitoring vibration and shock
due to construction work taking place next to our museum. Our
monitoring equipment collects data on three different planes
situated in straight angles to each other: two horizontal (X and Y)
and one vertical (Z). The system is set to give an alarm when a
certain level of vibration and shock is exceeded, although currently
alarms are only generated with readings from the X and Y planes.

Since the articles I have read on vibration monitoring in museums do
not relate to the different planes (X,Y,Z) in vibration and shock
monitoring, I'd like to ask if anybody has some ideas on how the Z
(vertical) plane can affect museum objects. Construction engineers
are of the opinion that buildings are not particularly put at risk
by the Z plane, and tend to disregard readings from the Z plane even
when they are very high. Can the same be said for museum objects
inside the building, mounted or sitting freely on shelves in display
cases? Is the buffering given by foundations, floors and then wooden
bases of cases and finally mounts inside cases sufficient to
disregard the Z plane? Are there publications relating to the
difference in data from different planes in terms of safeguarding
archaeological objects? Insights into this subject will be very
gratefully received.

Gali Beiner (ACR)
Conservator
Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 23:19
                 Distributed: Sunday, November 29, 2009
                       Message Id: cdl-23-19-017
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