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Chapter 3

Stabilizers
Stabilizers are the fourth element required to prevent cables from undergoing extreme shape changes under varying load conditions. Lightweight roof systems, such as
cables or membranes, are susceptible to pronounced undulation or fluttering when acted upon by wind forces
(Figure 3.7).
Figure 3.7

Cable flutter in a lightweight roof.

Figure 3.8 Galloping Gertie, Tacoma

Narrows Bridge. Courtesy of the University of
Washington Libraries, Special Collections,
UW 21422.

Every form of a building, like every physical law, has its

limitations or breaking points. In the beam, which resists
loads in bending, this takes the form of cracking or shearing. In the arch, whose primary loading is in compression,
this occurs as buckling or crushing. And in the cable,
which resists load only through tension, the destructive
force is vibrationparticularly flutter, a complex phenomenon that belies the lightness of its name. David B.
Steinman, one of the great U.S. suspension bridge engineers, isolated and identified this phenomenon of flutter
in 1938.
All materials of whatever nature have a natural molecular
vibration or frequency range. If an outside force acting
upon a material comes within that frequency range, causing the material to vibrate internally, or flutter, a vibrational state may be reached where the outer and inner
forces are in tune (called resonance), and the material undergoes destruction. Even without reaching resonance, the
uneven loading of outside forces, such as wind, may cause
a material to vibrate visibly up and down, building up
rhythmically to destruction. It was these allied forces, plus
design flaws, that reduced the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to
rubble (Figure 3.8).
In heavy, earthbound, compressive structures, the natural
frequencies are so low that few external forces can bring
them to resonance, and sheer weight has the effect of
checking vibrations. In cable structures, however, the light
and exceedingly strong materials are so extremely sensitive to uneven loading that vibration and flutter become
major design considerations. After the Tacoma Narrows
failure, a large group of top U.S. engineers and scientists,