Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge is a Grade I listed combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones and engineered by John Wolfe Barry with the help of Henry Marc Brunel. It crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London and is one of five London bridges owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust founded in 1282. The bridge was constructed to give better access to the East End of London, which had expanded its commercial potential in the 19th century. The bridge was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales and Alexandra, Princess of Wales in 1894. The bridge is in length and consists of two bridge towers connected at the upper level by two horizontal walkways, and a central pair of bascules that can open to allow shipping. Originally hydraulically powered, the operating mechanism was converted to an electro-hydraulic system in 1972. The bridge is part of the London Inner Ring Road and thus the boundary of the London congestion charge zone, and remains an important traffic route with 40,000 crossings every day. The bridge deck is freely accessible to both vehicles and pedestrians, whereas the bridge's twin towers, high-level walkways, and Victorian engine rooms form part of the Tower Bridge Exhibition. Tower Bridge has become a recognisable London landmark. It is sometimes confused with London Bridge, about upstream, which has led to a persistent urban legend about an American purchasing the wrong bridge. In the late 19th century, commercial development in the East End of London increased, leading to demand for a new river crossing downstream of London Bridge. A traditional fixed bridge at street level could not be built because it would cut off access by sailing ships to the port facilities in the Pool of London between London Bridge and the Tower of London. A Special Bridge or Subway Committee chaired by Sir Albert Joseph Altman was formed in 1877 to find a solution. More than fifty designs were submitted, including one from civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette, which was rejected because of a lack of sufficient headroom.

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Selection of informative monitoring techniques for bridge-performance evaluations

Eugen Brühwiler, Numa Joy Bertola

Decisions regarding the management of civil infrastructure are becoming more crucial as a large share of bridges is presently approaching what is often considered to be the end of their theoretical service duration. Evaluating existing structures using a d ...

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Vibration Serviceability Assessment for Pedestrian Bridges Based on Model Falsification

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With the development of new materials and advanced structural analysis, alongside increasing aesthetic requirements, recent years have witnessed a trend toward longer, taller, and lighter footbridges. Different from vehicular bridges, footbridges carry rel ...

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Fatigue Damage Factor Calibration for Long-Span Cable-Stayed Bridge Decks

Alain Nussbaumer, José Joaquim Costa Branco de Oliveira Pedro, Cláudio Alexandre Pereira Baptista

Part 2 of the Eurocode 3 (EN 1993-2) proposes a straight forward fatigue verification method using a single heavy vehicle model (FLM3) and a damage equivalent factor, lambda, to represent the fatigue damaging effects of the real traffic on road bridges. Th ...

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East End of London

The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have universally accepted boundaries to the north and east, though the River Lea is sometimes seen as the eastern boundary. Parts of it may be regarded as lying within Central London (though that term too has no precise definition). The term "East of Aldgate Pump" is sometimes used as a synonym for the area.

London Bridge

Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. It is the oldest road-crossing location on the river. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded a 600-year-old stone-built medieval structure.

Port of London

The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary (since 1968, a line drawn from Foulness Point in Essex via Gunfleet Old Lighthouse to Warden Point in Kent) with the North Sea and including any associated docks. Once the largest port in the world, it was the United Kingdom's largest port as of 2020. Usage is largely governed by the Port of London Authority ("PLA"), a public trust established in 1908; while mainly responsible for coordination and enforcement of activities it also has some minor operations of its own.

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