Millennium Bridge (London)

The Millennium Bridge is a pedestrian bridge over the Thames in London. It connects the City of London on the north side with the Borough of Southwark in the London Borough of Southwark on the south side. The bridge is owned by Bridge House Estates, a charitable organization of the Corporation of London.

At the northern end of the bridge there are the St Paul's Cathedral and the City of London School, at the southern end of the Tate Modern, the Globe Theatre and the Bankside Gallery. The erdverankerte suspension bridge is oriented so that one of the southern shore enjoys an unobstructed view of the St Paul's Cathedral.

Design

, In 1996, the city district administration of Southwark an architectural competition. The winning project was that of Arup, Norman Foster and Anthony Caro. Due to the limitation of the height and to improve the prospect of the supporting cables are next to the footpath, causing the suspension bridge appears unusually flat. The bridge rests on two pillars and has three sections with a length of 81, 144 and 108 meters ( north-south ); the entire length of the bridge is 325 meters. The eight supporting cables can carry a weight of 2000 tons, thus can simultaneously hold 5000 people are present on the bridge.

History

Preliminary work began in July 1998, the main work on 28 April 1999. The bridge cost 18.2 million pounds ( 2.2 million over budget ) and was opened on 10 June 2000 with two months late. Only two days later, they had to be closed to the public again because of uncontrolled violent sway. This was mainly lateral movements. The vertical movements, however, remained in the predicted frame. The bridge was then of the inhabitants of London nicknamed "The wobbly bridge" ( wobbly bridge ).

Extensive theoretical studies and practical tests gave the following explanation:

The first natural frequency of transverse vibrations of the bridge is about 1 Hz Therefore, it is quite possible for pedestrians, to encourage them to vibrate. In general, people do not run on a bridge course in lockstep. However, if by chance the bridge comes once in transverse vibrations, the people of this oscillation to settle down and try to balance this by their own movement ( as a sailor moves on a rocking ship). So they move uniformly, thus reinforcing the vibration. This is largely unconscious. Only when the vibrations have become so large that they are perceived as unpleasant or threatening, people stop and talk, if possible, the railing. Thus, the vibration stops again.

To remediate one built in the next two years a special damper system in the Millennium Bridge. This basically consists of bridge under some fields diagonally laid dampers and a total of 58 vibration absorbers that were horizontally and vertically connected to the bridge.

On 22 February 2002, the Millennium Bridge was opened to the public again. The experience with the unexpected "life " of the Millennium Bridge led to extensive follow-up investigations of other bridge structures, as it had the horizontal vibrations are not given in this form in bridge by 2000 sufficient attention.

In March 2008, the Millennium Bridge was closed for two days to complete shooting for the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; in the film, the bridge will be destroyed.