Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientist Tomas Grejtak has received STLE’s Early Career Award, honoring high-impact research in tribology (friction, wear, and lubrication), and will be recognized at the society’s May 18–21 annual meeting in New Orleans. His work focuses on wear, friction, deformation, and contact mechanics in materials used in nuclear, biomass, and automotive systems.

Researchers from Dalian University of Technology have developed an innovative seismic protection system that combines segmented rocking trusses with multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMD) to significantly improve the earthquake resilience of high-rise steel buildings. The proposed system overcomes the limitations of conventional rocking structures that are primarily effective only for first-mode vibration control. By dividing the rocking truss into multiple segments along the building height and strategically placing MTMDs based on the structure's vibration characteristics, the new design achieves uniform deformation distribution, prevents weak-story failure mechanisms, and reduces maximum inter-story drift ratios by 7% to 29%. The findings, published in Lifeline Emergency and Safety, demonstrate that this hybrid approach effectively controls multi-order vibration mode damage while maintaining the self-centering advantages of traditional rocking systems.