Tacoma Narrows Bridge
One of the most influential engineering discoveries in the past century was the ill-fated Tacoma Narrows Bridge. “Galloping Gertie” as she was known to local residents, the massive Washington state suspension bridge shook, rattled and rolled its way into the history books. Legendary in its time, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge held many records and drew tourists from around the world in its short life. However, the famous bridge is not known for its creative engineering or speedy construction, unfortunately the bridge was destined to fail. That failure in turn changed the way every building is constructed today as well as further man’s understanding of physics and the forces of nature. In this paper we will examine the history of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge from design to construction, the failure of the bridge, and ultimately the rebuilding project.
The bridge was constructed roughly 8 miles west of downtown Tacoma and 40 miles south of Seattle. This area of Washington is a maze of waterways and islands named the Puget Sound where the Pacific Ocean meets the mainland of Washington. The original build location is known as the Tacoma Narrows, due to the proximity of Olympic Peninsula and the mainland. The Olympic Peninsula is home to beaches, the Hoh Rain Forest, the Olympic Mountains and the Victorian Seaport. The span between shores is about a mile wide which is surprisingly the closest in all 20,000 square miles of Puget Sound, hence the name Tacoma Narrows.
The Olympic Peninsula rests in the middle of the Puget Sound in Western Washington and is home to wildlife, hunting and fishing, and a few fledgling communities in the 1930’s. State officials had been p...
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... due for completion in 2008. Today 90,000 vehicles cross the Tacoma Narrows a day, in the next 5 years the Washington Toll Authority Projects the bridges to transport 120,000 vehicles a day.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was possibly the luckiest engineering catastrophe if there ever was one. Despite the very real danger, no human life was lost and engineers and the human race alike are better off for it.
Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge
http://euclid.ucc.ie/applmath/projects/bridge/
http://www.brantacan.co.uk/osclinks.htm
http://www.civeng.carleton.ca/Exhibits/Tacoma_Narrows/DSmith/photos.html
http://www.civl.port.ac.uk/comp_prog/tacoma/design.htm
http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcoll/tnb/
http://www.nwrain.net/~newtsuit/recoveries/narrows/narrows.htm
http://www.vibrationdata.com/Tacoma.htm
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