Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940)
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The 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the first bridge at this location, was a suspension bridge in the U.S. state of Washington that spanned the Tacoma Narrows strait of Puget Sound between Tacoma and the
The original Tacoma Narrows Bridge on its opening day on July 1, 1940
Program for the opening of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, June 30, 1940
The main bridge span falling into the strait on November 7, 1940
A fragment of the collapsed bridge, in the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma
Aeroelasticity
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Aeroelasticity is the branch of physics and engineering studying the interactions between the inertial, elastic, and aerodynamic forces occurring while an elastic body is exposed to a fluid flow. The
Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940)
…as an example of elementary forced mechanical resonance, but it was more complicated in reality; the bridge collapsed because moderate winds produced aeroelastic flutter that was self-exciting and unbounded: for any constant sustained wind speed above about 35 mph (56 km/h), the amplitude of the (torsional) flutter…
NASA testing a scale model Lockheed Electra in a wind tunnel for flutter
Buffeting of the fin caused by the breakdown of the vortex on the NASA HARV F/A-18 wing
Mass balances protruding from an aileron used to suppress flutter