The Millennium Bridge, officially known as the London Millennium Footbridge, is a

steel suspension bridge for pedestrians crossing the River Thames in London,
linking Bankside with the City of London. It is located between Southwark
Bridge and Blackfriars Railway Bridge. It is owned and maintained by Bridge House
Estates, a charitable trust overseen by the City of London Corporation. Construction
began in 1998, and it initially opened in June 2000.

Londoners nicknamed the bridge the "Wobbly Bridge" after pedestrians felt unexpected
swaying motion. The bridge was closed later on opening day, and after two days of
limited access, it was closed for almost two years while modifications were made to
eliminate the motion. It reopened in 2002.

The southern end of the bridge is near the Globe theatre, the Bankside Gallery,
and Tate Modern, while the northern end of the bridge is next to the City of London
School below St Paul's Cathedral. The bridge alignment is such that a clear view (i.e. a
"terminating vista") of St Paul's south faade is presented from across the river, framed
by the bridge supports.

Design

The design of the bridge was the subject of a competition organised in 1996
by Southwark council and RIBA Competitions. The winning entry was an innovative
"blade of light" effort from Arup Group, Foster and Partners, and Sir Anthony Caro. Due
to height restrictions, and to improve the view, the bridge's suspension design had the
supporting cables below the deck level, giving a very shallow profile. The bridge has
two river piers and is made of three main sections of 81 m (266 ft), 144 m (472 ft), and
108 m (354 ft) (north to south) with a total structure length of 325 m (1,066 ft); the
aluminium deck is 4 m (13 ft) wide. The eight suspension cables are tensioned to pull
with a force of 2,000 tons against the piers set into each bank enough to support
a working load of 5,000 people on the bridge at one time.

Construction

Ordinarily, bridges across the River Thames require an Act of Parliament. For this
bridge, that was avoided by the Port of London Authority granting a licence for the
structure obtaining planning permissions from the City of London and London Borough
of Southwark. Construction began in late 1998 and the main works were started on 28
April 1999 by Monberg & Thorsen and Sir Robert McAlpine. The bridge was completed
at a cost of 18.2M (2.2M over budget), primarily paid for by the Millennium
Commission and the London Bridge Trust. It opened on 10 June 2000 (two months
late).
Unexpected lateral vibration (resonant structural response) caused the bridge to be
closed on 12 June 2000 for modifications. Attempts were made to limit the number of
people crossing the bridge. This led to long queues but was ineffective to dampen the
vibrations. Closure of the bridge only two days after opening attracted public criticism of
it as another high-profile British Millennium project that suffered an embarrassing
setback, akin to how many saw the Millennium Dome. Vibration was attributed to an
under-researched phenomenon whereby pedestrians crossing a bridge that has a lateral
sway have an unconscious tendency to match their footsteps to the sway, exacerbating
it. The tendency of a suspension bridge to sway when troops march over it in step was
well known, which is why troops are required to break step when crossing such a
bridge.

The bridge was temporarily closed on 18 January 2007, during the Kyrill storm due to
strong winds and a risk of pedestrians being blown off the bridge.

The bridge's movements were caused by a 'positive feedback' phenomenon, known as

synchronous lateral excitation. The natural sway motion of people walking caused small
sideways oscillations in the bridge, which in turn caused people on the bridge to sway
in step, increasing the amplitude of the bridge oscillations and continually reinforcing
the effect. On the day of opening, the bridge was crossed by 90,000 people, with up to
2,000 on the bridge at any one time.

Resonant vibrational modes due to vertical loads (such as trains, traffic, pedestrians)
and wind loads are well understood in bridge design. In the case of the Millennium
Bridge, because the lateral motion caused the pedestrians loading the bridge to directly
participate with the bridge, the vibrational modes had not been anticipated by the
designers. The crucial point is that when the bridge lurches to one side, the pedestrians
must adjust to keep from falling over, and they all do this at exactly the same time.
Hence, the situation is similar to soldiers marching in lockstep, but horizontal instead of
vertical.

The risks of lateral vibration problems in lightweight bridges are well known. Any bridge
with lateral frequency modes of less than 1.3 Hz, and sufficiently low mass, could
witness the same phenomenon with sufficient pedestrian loading. The greater the
number of people, the greater the amplitude of the vibrations. For example, Albert
Bridge in London has a sign dating from 1873 warning marching ranks of soldiers to
break step while crossing. Other bridges which have seen similar problems are:

Birmingham NEC Link bridge, with a lateral frequency of 0.7 Hz

Groves Suspension Bridge, Chester, in 1977 during the Jubilee river regatta
Auckland Harbour Bridge, with a lateral frequency of 0.67 Hz, during a 1975
demonstration.
After extensive analysis by the engineers, the problem was fixed by the retrofitting of
37 fluid-viscous dampers (energy dissipating) to control horizontal movement and
52 tuned mass dampers (inertial) to control vertical movement. This took from May
2001 to January 2002 and cost 5M. After a period of testing, the bridge was
successfully reopened on 22 February 2002. The bridge has not been subject to
significant vibration since. In spite of the successful fix of the problem, the affectionate
"wobbly bridge" epithet remains in common usage among Londoners.

An artistic expression of the higher-frequency resonances within the cables of the

bridge were explored by Bill Fontana's 'Harmonic Bridge' exhibition at the Tate Modern
museum in mid-2006. This used acoustic transducers placed at strategic locations on
the cabling of the Millennium Bridge and the signals from those transducers were
amplified and dynamically distributed throughout the Turbine Hall of the Tate by a
programme which Fontana entered into the sound diffusion engine of the Richmond
Sound Design.
 Republic of the Philippines

RAMON MAGSAYSAY TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Iba, Zambales

Millennium Bridge, London

Submitted by: Jomar C. Lipaopao