Construction
16 Nov 00
Millennium Bridge to be closed for further eight months
London's Millennium Bridge across the River Thames is expected to remain closed for a further eight months while engineers test and fit dampers to the structure to reduce its swaying motion. Bridge owner the Millennium Bridge Trust announced today that the full remedial work is likely to cost around US$7.5 million and will take six months to carry out. But before the work starts, the Trust has asked consultant Arup, which designed the original structure, to test and analyse its solution on the bridge - a process which will take approximately six weeks. Arup has recommended that a combination of viscous dampers and tuned mass dampers should be fitted under the deck of the bridge to control its motion. A prototype test will be carried out on the bridge to compare the actual and predicted behaviour of the bridge with sets of dampers in place. If results are favourable, the remedial work will start immediately.
