Hardware Podcasts

Disaster Strikes on the Wobbly Bridge | The London Millennium Bridge #22

Hard Tech Podcast · 1 Sept 2024 · 8m

What this episode covers

The host discusses the London Millennium Bridge, designed by Norman Foster and Arup, which suffered from synchronous lateral excitation on its opening day in 2000 due to pedestrian footfall matching the bridge's natural frequency. The incident was resolved by installing 91 dampers, including 52 tuned mass dampers and 37 viscous dampers, to absorb kinetic energy and stabilize the structure. The episode highlights the engineering lesson regarding the interaction between human behavior and flexible structural design.

Most relevant to

large enterprises

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Arup
Products
London Millennium Bridge, Tacoma Bridge
Also
Norman Foster

Related episodes from other shows

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • Hackaday Podcast · 53m

    Ep086: News Overflow, Formula 1/3 Racer, Stand Up Rubber Duckies, and Useless Machine Takes a Turn

    Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams discuss a wide range of news, including the engineering failure of a PG&E transmission line hook that caused the Camp Fire, and AutoDesk's controversial changes to Fusion 360's free license. They highlight several community hacks, such as Jan Derogi's 3D-printed prosthetic feet for rubber duckies, Keith 57,000's 1/3 scale hybrid Formula 1 RC car, and Alex's integration of a vintage Mitsubishi Visitel video conferencing unit with Zoom. The episode also covers a wooden disk player by Jay Bumstead, remote education tools, and a discussion on the potential for life on Venus based on phosphine gas detections.

    Debugging & failure analysisEDA & CAD tools
    9 chapters

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Hard Tech Podcast. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.