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Harnessing the Energy of Galloping Gertie

Posted by timothy on from the there-is-a-season-churn-churn-churn dept.

FatLittleMonkey writes "You've all seen the footage of Galloping Gertie, the infamous Tacoma Narrows bridge. This is due to a type of turbulence called Wake Galloping, caused by airflow creating lift on the lee-side of cylinders (or cables on suspension bridges.) Now researchers in South Korea have developed a way of harnessing the turbulence to generate electricity. Their device works most efficiently at wind speeds too low for conventional wind turbines."

1 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Catastrophic failure? by sortius_nod · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Not sure if you understand the definition of joke

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

    Stupid questions that are answered in the summary aren't what is defined as a joke. There is no twist, no humour, nothing, just a stupid question that's already been answered.

    Now researchers in South Korea have developed a way of harnessing the turbulence to generate electricity.

    It states quite clearly they are going to harness natural power source, not build a bridge and watch it rock its way down. Not sure about you, but every project I've been on the assumption is that you don't allow for catastrophic failure (pretty sure that's covered in some project management course somewhere).