Vibrating Structures
Details
Refreshments from 18:00. Talk starts 18:30.
This free event is open to everyone and is a joint event between all member Institutions of the Engineering Council active in NW England.
Speaker
Dr Allan Mann CEng, FREng, FIStructE, MICE: Senior Consultant, Jacobs (Recently Retired)
Contact Name
Dorothy Balmer
Contact Email
Abstract
Vibration can be pleasant and useful or annoying and harmful. For all engineers, coping with vibration raises design problems. Some very large structures have suffered through excessive vibration: the failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940) and oscillation on the Millennium Bridge in London (2000) are well known examples and most people have heard the legend of bridges failing by soldiers marching in step.
Closer to home, the failure of the Emley Moor TV mast (Huddersfield) in 1969 was due to oscillation in windy conditions as was damage caused to the B of the Bang sculpture near the Manchester Stadium. Other vibration problems occur in stadia during pop concerts and in floors where aerobics are taking place.
Why structures vibrate and how excessive vibration can be prevented is of great practical importance across the whole spectrum of buildings and has application in problems as diverse as creating a Concert Hall, saving structures from earthquakes and, at the end of their life, blowing them up!
About the Speaker
Dr Mann is a structural engineer based in Manchester. He has recently retired as a Senior Consultant for Jacobs UK working on projects with a special technical content and frequently associated with steel including stadia, long span structures, cable supported structures and large observation wheels. Allan also worked on many tall structures: cooling towers and stacks and often works directly with contractors assisting on projects where the integration of design and construction activities is particularly close. Although formally retired, he still acts on an ad hoc basis for Jacobs currently advising on design and construction of a 208m successor to the London Eye in Beijing and recently investigated failures on another wheel in Australia.