Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse
Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse
On November 7, 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed. An explanation based on resonance was offered at that time, but in 1990, a new model was considered [1]. Assuming that a cable cannot be described with the usual Hooke's law, it set up a nonlinear model with vertical and torsional motion. This Demonstration uses another equation presented in 1999 [2] that avoided linearizing the torsional equation to avoid removing a wide variety of behavior. A sinusoidal forcing term was introduced with amplitude and frequency , while corresponds to the initial angle. Cases with slight increases for small torsional forcing with a transitioning to large oscillations can be observed, which is what presumably happened at Tacoma Narrows.
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