In December 2017, Virginia Tech mechanical engineering professor Pablo Tarazaga watched as a crew unloaded a 2,000-pound, navy blue shaker table and its components into the Advanced Vibrations and Acoustics Lab first floor space in Durham Hall. The loan was orchestrated by alumni who work at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren, including shock and vibration technical expert Luke Martin (M.S. in mechanical engineering ’04, Ph.D. in mechanical engineering ’11), who was classmates with Tarazaga. In August 2018, the lab held an official ribbon cutting for the now set up piece of equipment, which can apply a vibrational force of up to 2,000 pounds, can shake objects at frequencies as high as 4,000 hertz.
