Here is another article on the lean of London’s Big Ben clock tower. According to Professor John Burland of Imperial College, it would take 10,000 years for the tower to match the lean of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. The tilt is very minor at 0.26 degrees from vertical , and has not changed since the initial announcement was made in October of 2011. [Source: BBC News. Image: BBC Illustration]
This has to be one of the most complex geotechnical engineering problems I’ve heard of for a building, if not for any kind of project. For starters, beneath the proposed 10-story office building referred to as Cannon Place lies the Cannon Street Train Station built in 1868. Also beneath the site are walls and foundations of a Roman Governor’s palace. In order to accommodate these features, the building has 21-m cantilevers at each end, with the load bearing happening over two groupings of columns at the 1/3 points. In section it looks quite like a 3-span bridge…without the abutments and stacked 10-stories tall! More after the break. (Images by New Civil Engineer) […]
London’s famous landmark Big Ben is now about 1/2 of a meter off of perpendicular according to recent surveys. The monument has been tilting towards the north for some time, with the rate of movement […]
Steel augers reportedly from a piling operation at the ground surface broke through a railway tunnel in East London. Fortunately the train drivers noticed and reported the damage before any serious accident occurred. The busy […]
Copyright © 2007-2020 by Randy Post