    
miro
Senior Member
Username: miro
Post Number: 1250
Registered: 11-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 - 03:30 pm: | 
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Based on the reports on TV and the pictures in the newspaper today, I thought about what might the impact force have been when the cargo ship struck the pier of the Key Bridge.
Using the data about the weight of the ship, and its speed, and using some reasonable assumptions ( e.g. the distance travelled after initial contact based on the drone pictures), I came up with an estimate of a force in the range of about 30,000 tons. I diddled with the assumptions a bit, and that number would vary, maybe by about 10% - 15% .
So , even if I'm off by say 50% , there's no way that the pier and the columns on that pier holding up the bridge would survive such a force.
The late evening TV news on CBC reported that the crew were ordered to drop the anchors, which they did and then retreat shortly after the initial engine failure. But this was to no avail.
The guys up on the ship's bridge, who had a ringside seat to the collision, must have had the time to process what was about to happen, and then watched, horrified, as the bridge collapsed.
I expect this will become a case study for civil engineers, and possibly some nerdy high school students.
I'm reminded of a poem by Rudyard Kipling . . .Hymn of Breaking Strain
The careful text books measure, let all who build beware,
The load the shock the pressure material can bear.
So when the buckled girder lets down the grinding span,
the blame of loss or murder is laid upon the man,
Not on the stuff, the Man. |
