Millennium Bridge is a footbridge over the Themse in London. It connects the town center OF London on the north side with the quarter Southwark in the urban district London Borough OF Southwark on the south side. The bridge is in the possession of Bridge House Estates, a welfare organization of the corporation OF London.

At the northern end of the bridge the St Paul's Cathedral and the town center OF London School is, at the southern end would do a decaying, the Globe Theatre and the Bankside the Gallery. The earthembodied suspension bridge is in such a way aligned that one enjoys an unrestricted view of the St Paul's Cathedral from the southern bank.

Design

1996 organized the urban district administration of Southwark an architectural competition. The victorious project was that one from Arup, Norman Foster and Anthony Caro. Because of the restriction of the height and around the prospect to improve, it is the carrying rope below the footpath height whereby the suspension bridge appears unusually flat. The bridge stands on two columns and possesses three sections with a length of 81 m, 144 m and 108 m (from north to south); the entire length of the bridge amounts to 325 M. the eight carrying rope can a weight of 2000 tons carry, thus at the same time 5000 persons on the bridge can be.

History

The chief work began a pre-working on 28 April 1999 in July 1998. The bridge cost to 18.2 million Pound (2.2 millions over the budget) and on 10 June 2000 with two months delay was opened. Only two days later it had to be closed because of uncontrolled violent varying again for public traffic. One assumed for the time being, the reason for this lies in going of many humans in a very similar frequency. However not like expected only horizontal oscillations, but above all vertical oscillations were registered.

After several tests one found out that these oscillations were caused by vertical shifting of the body emphasis of humans. If humans advance only slowly, e.g. in a queue, then they "“tumble"” from left to right and again back. By it the bridge began exactly to move sideways ever more since the natural frequency of the bridge corresponded rather exactly to those of "“trampling"” humans on the bearing surface. This effect strengthened by the fact that humans constantly tried to adapt their emphasis to the briefly changed vertical upward gradient. Thus the entire construction swung itself ever more up.

After the locking one built a special absorber system in the following two years into the Millennium Bridge. This exists essentially out under some bridge fields diagonally shifted absorbers and altogether 58 Schwingungstilgern, which were connected horizontal and vertically with the bridge.

On 22 February 2002 the Millennium Bridge could be opened after detailed tests and computations again for public traffic. The experiences with that unexpected "“independent existence"” the Millennium Bridge led to comprehensive re-examinations of other bridge constructions, since one had given up to the year 2000 not sufficiently attention to the vertical oscillations in this form in the bridge construction.

Related links

• www.arup.com: millenniumbridge
• www.wissenschaft.de: The secret of the varying Millennium Bridge in London

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