The Tacoma Narrow Bridge collapse

The Tacoma Narrow Bridge collapse was one of the engineering mishaps which happened on 7

November 1940. This bridge at that time was third longest suspension bridge. At the time of

incident, there was a single car on the bridge. as soon the driver of the car realized that bridge

is jolting he left his car and jumped into bridge. However, there was a dog inside a car which

could not run away. After the collapse of bridge the number of inquiries was conducted to find

the exact reason for this incident. As result of these inquires new standards and safety

precautions were adopted and wind-tunnel tested were strictly implemented. This bridge was

reconstructed in 1950 and improved design standard were implemented to give better resistant

to wind. After this incident bridge engineering changed a lot.

This bridge connected the Eastern shore and I5 corridor. There were two lanes built because it

was expected that traffic flow will be less. Tacoma bridge was kind of suspension bridge in

which multiple number of steel cables were tight with large tower built on concrete basis. Cable

which was connected in the suspension bridge was hanging in the natural form. This project

was completed in the supervision of Chief engineer: Joseph B. Strauss and it was financed by

federal public world administration. One of the term of load was to change in the design of

bridge So that it reduce it cost. However, safety precautions and arrow dynamic principles were

ignored. Total length of bridge was 5939 feet and each tower of the bridge was 425 feet. At the

time of collapse there were high winds upward at 40 mph. The bridge dick was not strong

enough to give support to the bridge and fracture was developed and tower tilted backward.

Finally bridge was demolished.

Reference

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