Dynamic analysis of Ramses II statue

Abstract

It was decided to move Ramses II statue from the heart of Cairo to another location in the outskirts close to the planned new Egyptian Museum, scheduled to be opened for public in 2011. The statue was originally 83 tons, 12 meters high, in one piece of granite. The statue originally stood in the ancient capital of Memphis and was found in six pieces during an excavation in 1882. In 1952 it was moved to Ramses Square in central Cairo and all pieces were joined together. When first placed it was surrounded by trees and a huge fountain which was very famous for a long time. Nowadays, the air pollution from heavy city traffic was taking its toll as were vibrations from the traffic and the subway. Because of the importance of this monument, the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, asked the ASU Sound and Vibration Lab. at Ain Shams University to monitor the vibrations on the statue during the relocation project. The major concern was to avoid exciting the statue close to one of its natural frequencies. Therefore, the identification of the natural frequencies and mode shapes was crucial. The main idea was to perform use the Operational Modal Analysis technique using the random excitation due to the construction work to determine the natural frequencies and mode shapes using. A full three-dimensional Finite Element Analysis also helped to assure that no single mode of vibrations was overlooked in the Operational Modal Analysis. This paper reports the analyses that were performed by the ASU Sound and Vibration Lab.