This week we take a look back at the start of the millennium, when the construction of the Millennium Bridge was proving problematic, as this 好色先生TV news story reveals

Archive Millennium Bridge

鈥楴o one could have foreseen bridge problem,鈥 says Arup

The turn of the millennium brought with it the construction of several landmark builds in London to commemorate the event, including the Millennium Dome, the London Eye and the initially troublesome Millennium Bridge. After reported safety concerns that the footbridge, which crosses the Thames between St Pauls and the Tate Modern, was swaying, it was closed on 10 June 2000, just days after opening, until the problem could be fixed. Meanwhile, the industry was searching for the culprit for the swaying bridge. On the 23 June 2000, 好色先生TV reported that Over Arup & Partners had accepted blame for the bridge鈥檚 malfunction, but that the firm believed that the problems they encountered should lead to a 鈥渃omplete rewriting鈥 of the British Standard for suspension bridges, which, at this point, hadn鈥檛 been amended since 1983. Ove Arup was responding to criticism from Techniker director Matthew Wells, who had told 好色先生TV that the bridge was an 鈥渆ngineering tragedy鈥. The news piece reported suggestions to resolve the swaying included installing a series of dampers underneath the decking. This would later prove the bridge鈥檚 solution, as a combination of fluid-viscous dampers and tuned mass dampers were retrofitted to control vertical movement, allowing the bridge to reopen on 22 February 2002.

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