Sumanth Cheruku is a Project Engineer with Thornton Tomasetti in their Austin office. He is the Secretary of Chapter 29 of ASCE 7 for the 2022 code cycle and has investigated failures and peer-reviewed designs for utility-scale PV solar trackers from various manufacturers.
Renewable power generation nearly doubled in the past decade, growing from 382 million MegaWatt hours (MWh) in 2008 to 742 million MWh in 2018, contributing approximately 18% of total power generated in the United States in 2018. 13% (96 million MWh) of the total renewable power is solar from both small-scale and utility-scale installations. …
This article reviews the failure mechanisms of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (TNB) on November 7, 1940, and the characteristics of the original bridge that facilitated the resultant theories on its failure. The design of the bridge pushed the boundaries of knowledge at the time, unfortunately with undesired consequences. …