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TECH SPOTLIGHT
Liberty Bell Passes Stress Test
National Science Foundation
Arlington, Virginia

R ecently, under the watchful eyes

of curators, conservators, sur-
veyors, and engineers, a team of rig-
gers deftly lifted the fragile Liberty Bell
off of the supports on which it has
been resting for a quarter century, and
confirmed that the Bell can be safely
moved into its new home this fall.
Recognizable across the globe with
its famous crack, the 250-year-old bell
is remarkably frail for its size. The metal
is far from pure. Rather, it is a mixture
of various metals, voids, and contami-
nants, intermingled “like a piece of
fruitcake,” says Karie Diethorn, Super-
Fig. 1 — The Liberty Bell in its current pavilion located on Market Street in Philadelphia, Penn-
visory Museum Curator at Indepen- sylvania. Independence Hall is visible in the background on the left. Photo Credit: Curt Suplee,
dence National Historical Park in National Science Foundation.
Philadelphia. The park is operated by
the National Park Service.
Of particular concern is a hairline
fracture that extends from the main
crack to the rear of the Bell — if the
hairline fracture splits, so does the icon.
“In terms of assessing its fragility,
we really don’t know, so our plan is to
subject it to the least amount of stress
possible,” says Ms. Diethorn.
The Liberty Bell has traveled several
times, even across the country, before
settling in the 1976 Bicentennial facility
where it now rests (Fig. 1). The latest
move will bring the Bell closer to In-
dependence Hall, its original home.
Although the Bell will move only
200 yards into the new museum, cu-
rators are taking every precaution to
assure its safety. Steve Arms, president
of MicroStrain Inc., tracked move-
ments of the metal along the crack by Fig. 2 — Viewed from within the Liberty
tiny, wireless sensors he developed as Bell. The crack was originally a hairline, and
part of the NSF Small Business Inno- by the 1840s it was a threat to the bell. In an
vation Research program. The devices attempt to repair the crack, part of it was drilled
are extremely sensitive, able to detect out (creating the widened, visible crack familiar Fig. 3 — A close-up view of the MicroStrain
motion as small as 1/100th the width to visitors) and rivets were inserted to hold the NANO-DVRT wireless sensors clamped to the
of a human hair. two sides of the fissure together. Unfortunately, Liberty Bell (the top and bottom sensors are the
The researchers attached two metal the “repair” also deadened the sound, and the same design, but oriented perpendicular to each
Bell can no longer ring. Also visible within other). With even tiny motions of the crack—
sensors, originally developed for the
the Liberty Bell is the spider, a structural brace on the scale of millionths of a meter—the metal
semiconductor industry, on the metal rod shifts its placement. The movement is de-
that helps the Bell support its own weight—
around the Bell’s main crack (Fig. 2). much like a flying buttress helps distribute tected by electrical coils, and that information
One sensor monitored stresses that weight away from a cathedral roof. Without the is transmitted to a wireless receiver. The wires
could widen the crack, another mon- spider, the fractured Bell might collapse on itself. visible in this image are connecting the sensors
itored stresses from shearing motions Photo Credit: Curt Suplee, National Science to a wireless transmitter inside the Bell. Photo:
(Fig. 3). Stresses along the main crack Foundation. Curt Suplee, National Science Foundation.

ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES/SEPTEMBER 2003 45

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will warn of dangers that could spread
to the hairline fracture. The team also
hung a third sensor inside the Bell to
monitor potentially jarring rocking
motions.
The Bell surface is extremely sensi-
tive to both scratching and chemical
damage, so the team could not use
glues or directly touch metal to metal.
Ultimately, Andrew Lins, chief con-
servator of the Philadelphia Museum
of Art, worked with MicroStrain’s
Steven Mundell to carefully clamp the
devices to the Bell, inserting a special
paper to prevent scratches where the
sensors would otherwise touch the
surface.
Fortunately, the sensors detected no
motions greater than several millionths
of a meter, tiny movements that do not
seem to stress the Bell.
“We can use the data that we col-
lected to create upper and lower limits
for vibration, and sound an alarm
during the move to warn the riggers
if the limits are exceeded,” said Dr.
Arms. “That will allow us to move the
bell to the new location and basically
mimic the conditions that we saw here
today, which we feel are safe.”
Because of the nature of the move,
all of the technology had to be small
and wireless. Despite these restrictions,
the devices are capable of continuously
streaming enormous amounts of data
to a laptop at the site (Fig. 4). However,
the proprietary software is Web com-
patible, so all of the monitoring could
theoretically have been done from any-
where in the world.
MicroStrain’s work with the Liberty
Bell, and all of the stress sensors and
equipment, were provided pro bono.
“I just thought this would be a fun
project to take on, and a challenging
one,” said Dr. Arms. “We wanted to
try to protect a national treasure.”
The Liberty Bell was forged in 1752
at Whitechapel Bell Foundry in Eng-
land — the same foundry that forged
Big Ben (the 13-ton and, ironically,
cracked bell within the Great Clock of
Westminster) and the bells of the
Washington National Cathedral.
According to historians, the Penn-
sylvania Assembly probably ordered
the Bell in 1751 to commemorate the
50th Anniversary of Pennsylvania’s
Charter of Privileges, religious and po-
litical freedoms that the state had en-
joyed since its founding. The As-
sembly asked for the biblical inscrip-
tion: Proclaim Liberty throughout all the
Land Unto all the Inhabitants thereof –
Leviticus 25:10
ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES/SEPTEMBER 2003
Fig. 4 — A close-up view of the spider, a
structural brace that helps the Bell support its
own weight. Also visible is the wireless trans-
mitter that conveys the signals from the sen-
sors on the crack to the computer that is
recording the stresses (black box on top in blue
tape) and a MicroStrain G-link sensor that de-
tects rocking motion (black box near lip of Bell).
Photo Credit: Curt Suplee, National Science
Foundation.
The Bell was to hang in the clock
tower of the Pennsylvania State
House. The State House was later re-
named Independence Hall, and the
Bell — once known as the State House
bell —was renamed “Liberty Bell” by
abolitionists who adopted it as their
symbol in the 1800s.
The Bell cracked soon after its ar-
rival in Philadelphia and was recast
(from the original metal) by local
craftsmen John Pass and John Stow in
1753. Even that casting had problems,
and the Bell that now rests in the dis-
play hall is the third casting.
Over the next century of continuous
service, a crack had begun to form that
was filed down to prevent a jarring
noise when the Bell was struck (the
filing marks are still apparent today).
In February 1846, the Bell was repaired
and rung in commemoration of
George Washington’s birthday. The
repair is visible today as a wide jagged
crack spanned in two places by rivets.
While it once rang the pitch of E-flat,
the Bell has not pealed since 1846. ■
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