Foundation Engineering of Millennium Bridge in London - Essay Example

Foundation Engineering The structure in question is the Millennium Bridge in London, UK, connecting St Paul’s Cathedral to the Tate Modern Gallery. It is a pedestrian bridge 325 meters long and it was inaugurated on 10th June, 2010. The day when it was inaugurated it was noticed that the bridge was moving sideways when people were walking on it causing a sudden fear amongst the people. This paper considers this problem of swinging and how this situation was tackled with the investigations by the engineers.

The effectiveness of these will be analyzed in the end. The problem as already mentioned was the swinging of the bridge when the huge crowd of almost 80000 treads on it on the day of the inauguration. This created a sense of panic amongst not only the people but also the engineers because of the excessive swinging. As a result the bridge was closed temporarily from 12 June 2000. (The Millennium Bridge, 2011) After investigation it was discovered that the major reason behind the swinging was not the frailty of the bridge but the walking style of people.

This phenomenon was known as Synchronous Lateral Excitation. This meant that the natural way of walking of the people caused sideways oscillations of the bridge causing it to swing sideways. (London Landmarks, 2011) The investigation and experiments led to the suggestion of introducing damping mechanisms to absorb the pressure or vibrations of the walking people. Damping is not only beneficial in absorbing the pressures and oscillations but it is also not visible. This is because damping mechanisms are mostly fit in the underneath of the structure.

As a result, the matter was tackled effectively and was a sign for future structures. (Millenium Bridge, 2011)ReferencesLondon Landmarks, 20 March 2011, http://www.urban75.org/london/millennium.htmlMillenium Bridge, 20 March, 2011, www.news.bbc.co.uk/2000/millenium_bridge/solution.st The Millennium Bridge, 2011, http://www.arup.com