August 24, 2006
Big Engineering Project -- Tacoma Narrows Bridge
Ran into this website: The Doctor is In and he is blogging one of the more fascinating construction projects in our area in a long time. There is a bridge across the Tacoma Narrows -- the second one was built in 1950 to replace the first one that spectacularly failed during a windstorm in November of 1940 (it opened July 1940). Needless to say, the traffic loads have increased to the point where a new bridge is required. The engineering and technology going into this project is fascinating. I was working for a company in Seattle that did Ocean Engineering and they backed off from doing some work on this project as the conditions are fairly extreme. The tides flow through the Narrows at speeds up to several miles/hour and this makes placing caissons "interesting". Our old friend Bechtel is doing the work of course. Anyway, check out Dr. Bob's website
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