The Tacoma Narrows Bridge

Sites
  1. Brief account of the collapse of 1940 November 7
  2. Engineers set physicists straight. Resonance, but not simple driven resonance: Billah & Scanlon (1991, Am. J. Phys., 59(2), February)
Images

I've broken the links to the images until I figure out whether the can be freely displayed or not.

  1. Twisting of center just prior to collapse.
  2. Twisting at maximum: a 9 meter difference in height across.
  3. First failure at 11:00 am: chunk of concrete falls.
  4. A few minutes later.
  5. East span sags; center span gone.
  6. After the failure.