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Insane that the pylons wasn't protected by artificial islands.
by tokai 3y ago
Insane that the pylons wasn't protected by artificial islands.
- KyleBerezin 3y agoIt was, each pylon had 2 dolphins. Idk why people on the news keep saying it wasn't. Its hard to imagine being invited to speak on the news and not bothering to check any of your facts. source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwgOHpZlxvc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwgOHpZlxvc You can clearly see there are channel barriers, its just the ship came in at an angle.
- pard68 3y agoI tend to agree, but also, what could one even do? I have seen videos of shipping containers going into the shore and they don't stop for a good hundred yards or more.
- tokai 3y agoI don't know how they achieve it, but its best practise to protect bearing elements from collisions like this. There's like a whole subfield of bridge collision research.
- btbuildem 3y agoIf you think about this for a minute, you'll realize that what you're asking for is pretty much impossible. What would these artificial islands be made of? Sand, gravel, concrete rubble? This is a river, the constant current of the water erodes anything that resists it by staying in place. Piling up enough material to resist erosion and create a meaningful obstacle to 70000 tonnes in motion, that would significantly narrow and make shallow the navigable waterway. The only way to do this is to build giant underwater concrete towers -- basically the structures pylons typically rest on, the piers. Look up the process required to build these, it's quite an undertaking. They are engineered to withstand the pressure of ice floes every spring, they're not flimsy by any measure.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tokai 3y agoI have thought about it for hours by now, and read literature on the matter. It is definitely possible to build berms that protects a bridge from catastrophic failure in case of a ship collision, and it is widely done during modern bridge construction. Please be less sure of yourself when you clearly don't have any actual knowledge on the subject.
- btbuildem 3y agoI'd love to see a few examples, since you're so versed on the subject. I'm not a civil engineer by any means, but I imagine the people who designed and built that bridge knew what they were doing. There are likely limitations imposed by the site bathymetry and other things we don't know about. You can get a good look at the aftermath here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WssFXRzRVLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WssFXRzRVLU I'll be interesting to see how they choose to rebuild it.
- KoftaBob 3y agoThere are real world examples of what it would look like, they're called "dolphins": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_(structure)#/media/Fil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_(structure)#/media/Fil... "The new bridge is protected by 36 dolphins: four large dolphins protecting the two main pylons supporting the cable-stayed main span plus 32 smaller dolphins protecting bridge piers for 1⁄4 mi (1⁄2 km) to either side of the main span"
- btbuildem 3y agoSee my response to the other copy of your comment above
- low_common 3y ago"I have thought about it for hours by now, and read literature on the matter." Ah, the classic, pompous Hacker News user. The Baltimore Port Authority should've hired you to prevent this disaster - you're a genius!
- sp332 3y agohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/26/how-key-bridge-collapsed-baltimore/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/26/how-key-b... There are some, but because the ship drifted in at an angle, it missed them.