Aeroelastic flutter of bridges (Tacoma Narrows)
Flameo aeroelástico de los puentes (Tacoma Narrows)
- Date
- 7 de noviembre de 1940 · confidence high
- Place
- Tacoma, Washington, United States
- Credited to
- Leon Moisseiff (design) and Theodore von Kármán (analysis)
- Field
- Tools
What was discovered
The collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, with a slender deck of plate girders, showed that wind can excite self-excited torsional oscillations that grow until the structure fails. It forced bridges to be tested in wind tunnels.
It is often called 'resonance', but the accepted explanation is aeroelastic flutter; analysis was done by a board that included von Kármán. There had been earlier wind failures (Dryburgh 1818; Wheeling 1854).
What it led to
- wind-tunnel testing of bridges and buildings
- aerodynamic box-girder decks on suspension bridges
- aeroelasticity as part of civil engineering