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[–] 21 points 2 years ago (1 child)

A container ship like that weighs more than the bridge tower it hit.

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  • [+] -5 points 2 years ago (4 children)
  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    "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

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago

    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.

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