I don’t think integrity after getting a support annihilated by a massive ship is a reasonable design objective. You’d need way more supports and structure, at least doubling the weight and cost of the structure, I’d guess maybe 4x. As far as stress tests go, getting one of your two supports knocked out is an extremely stressing condition.
I learned recently that in engineering there’s a saying that anyone can build a bridge that will stand, but only an engineer can build a bridge that barely stands.
Which seems dark, but bridges are built on budgets while adhering to aesthetic, material, and site/traffic (on, under, and sometimes over) requirements.
And besides, that ship was between 210 to 257 million pounds, traveling at whatever speed it was going. I’m not a physicist, but I recon that’s enough force to knock down a bridge. (As evidenced.)
if you ever made a bridge out of toothpicks in school, the lesson is how much force it can hold straight up and down. Something super heavy whacking at its side while also dead on nailing one of the major support structures… yeah thing crumbled like toothpicks
It’s not just that the ship is as big as it is. A ship half it’s size could have done it too. Bridges like this are very strong in the way of supporting their deck. But the way they achieve it is by spreading the weight out over a very large area. Interrupt that and the whole thing comes down.
“Bump” is a galactically humble description of a collision with a container ship weighing nearly 200 million pounds.
To illustrate this more cleanly, the momentum of a loaded Boeing 787 flying near top speed is 17,760,000 N.s. For this ship going at just 10 km/h, the momentum is about 260,600,000 N.s. In other words, the bridge would need to be able to sustain the equivalent of 14 9/11 attacks, simultaneously.
The way to tolerate incidents like this is to add multiple points of isolated failure so that even if one point is catastrophically destroyed, only a portion of the bridge goes down while the rest remains intact. I don’t think there are many, if any, structures on the planet that can withstand that much force
This right here. You’d need a frankly ridiculous amount of solid stainless steel to build pylons for seaway protection, and that’s for low speed impacts.
Kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity!
I’m not a sailor it anything, but I suppose requiring tugboats for all harbor travel of shops over a gross weight might be a good thing. Makes more jobs, at least.
The crazy thing is it isn’t even the bridge being shoddy. It’s terrifyingly simple physics. High mass objects moving slowly and low mass objects moving quickly are both incredibly destructive. I’m not entirely sure how you build safeguards against a collision like that. It would need military grade protection – assuming even the military has something which could withstand that.
Think of it like this. A bridge is designed to distribute weight and force and stand up. It isn’t designed to take a hit like this.
I feel like the whole thing shouldn’t have come down as easy as it did…
Edit: Nevermind, I didn’t realize how large this ship actually is.
I don’t think integrity after getting a support annihilated by a massive ship is a reasonable design objective. You’d need way more supports and structure, at least doubling the weight and cost of the structure, I’d guess maybe 4x. As far as stress tests go, getting one of your two supports knocked out is an extremely stressing condition.
I learned recently that in engineering there’s a saying that anyone can build a bridge that will stand, but only an engineer can build a bridge that barely stands.
Which seems dark, but bridges are built on budgets while adhering to aesthetic, material, and site/traffic (on, under, and sometimes over) requirements.
And besides, that ship was between 210 to 257 million pounds, traveling at whatever speed it was going. I’m not a physicist, but I recon that’s enough force to knock down a bridge. (As evidenced.)
Even moving very slowly, that’s a hell of a lot of force exerted on something designed to take a sideways load caused by, at most, wind.
Bridges need therapists too!
i feel like giant ships shouldn’t be hitting the supports of a bridge
That old way of thinking has no place in 2024.
if you ever made a bridge out of toothpicks in school, the lesson is how much force it can hold straight up and down. Something super heavy whacking at its side while also dead on nailing one of the major support structures… yeah thing crumbled like toothpicks
It’s not just that the ship is as big as it is. A ship half it’s size could have done it too. Bridges like this are very strong in the way of supporting their deck. But the way they achieve it is by spreading the weight out over a very large area. Interrupt that and the whole thing comes down.
Baltimore Truthers, already?
I took it as less of “gubment did it” and more “holy shit that bridge seems shoddy as fuck”
A container ship like that weighs more than the bridge tower it hit.
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“Bump” is a galactically humble description of a collision with a container ship weighing nearly 200 million pounds.
To illustrate this more cleanly, the momentum of a loaded Boeing 787 flying near top speed is 17,760,000 N.s. For this ship going at just 10 km/h, the momentum is about 260,600,000 N.s. In other words, the bridge would need to be able to sustain the equivalent of 14 9/11 attacks, simultaneously.
The way to tolerate incidents like this is to add multiple points of isolated failure so that even if one point is catastrophically destroyed, only a portion of the bridge goes down while the rest remains intact. I don’t think there are many, if any, structures on the planet that can withstand that much force
This right here. You’d need a frankly ridiculous amount of solid stainless steel to build pylons for seaway protection, and that’s for low speed impacts.
Kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity!
I’m not a sailor it anything, but I suppose requiring tugboats for all harbor travel of shops over a gross weight might be a good thing. Makes more jobs, at least.
Also in designing such a resilient bridge, don’t forget one of the design requirements is to allow access to a busy shipping port
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Saying the bridge was bumped by the cargo ship is like saying someone got bumped in the head after having a brick thrown at them.
That was hardly a bump.
The crazy thing is it isn’t even the bridge being shoddy. It’s terrifyingly simple physics. High mass objects moving slowly and low mass objects moving quickly are both incredibly destructive. I’m not entirely sure how you build safeguards against a collision like that. It would need military grade protection – assuming even the military has something which could withstand that.
Think of it like this. A bridge is designed to distribute weight and force and stand up. It isn’t designed to take a hit like this.
They are the same thing.
“Thicc boats can’t break steel beams.”
Like jet fuel to a steel beam?
(Is it too soon if I was an eyewitness?)