Francise scott key bridge. Could it be remade immune to damage?

[Arugela]

Could the bridge supports be rebuild strong enough to actually take a hit from those boats? I would assume it's not the worst idea, if possible, to make them strong enough for any traffic designed to go under them.

If you made a new support as wide as those ships and in a circle at minimum how much damage could it take. What is the energy and max speed of those boats and how much could it take. Or can they be remade in a way to rebuild as fast as possible if hit again? And specifically avoid collapse if hit again at the worst case with existing potential ships.

Edited March 26 by Arugela

[DDE]

It might be much cheaper to solve the awful quality of mechant mariners these days than build indestructible bridges. Usually it's one licensed captain from Eastern Europe (in this case Sergei, 52, Ukrainian national) and a crew of a dozen barely literate hirelings from the boondocks of South-East Asia, all underpaid. This backfires constantly - sometimes they conspire with oirates, sometimes they ground ships trying to catch a cell signal from ashore cell towers.

Rebuilding bridges was heavily explored during the Cold War. But it basically requires having a spare bridge, usually a spare construction site as well in case the main one gets cratered by a nuke. It's very, very expensive.

[darthgently]

6 minutes ago, DDE said:

It might be much cheaper to solve the awful quality of mechant mariners these days than build indestructible bridges. Usually it's one licensed captain from Eastern Europe (in this case Sergei, 52, Ukrainian national) and a crew of a dozen barely literate hirelings from the boondocks of South-East Asia, all underpaid. This backfires constantly - sometimes they conspire with oirates, sometimes they ground ships trying to catch a cell signal from ashore cell towers.

Rebuilding bridges was heavily explored during the Cold War. But it basically requires having a spare bridge, usually a spare construction site as well in case the main one gets cratered by a nuke. It's very, very expensive.

 

21 minutes ago, Arugela said:

Could the bridge supports be rebuild strong enough to actually take a hit from those boats? I would assume it's not the worst idea, if possible, to make them strong enough for any traffic designed to go under them.

If you made a new support as wide as those ships and in a circle at minimum how much damage could it take. What is the energy and max speed of those boats and how much could it take. Or can they be remade in a way to rebuild as fast as possible if hit again? And specifically avoid collapse if hit again at the worst case with existing potential ships.

Tunnel.  This is the way.

[farmerben]

1 hour ago, Arugela said:

Could the bridge supports be rebuild strong enough to actually take a hit from those boats? 

To quote the Simpsons, "Short answer, yes with an if.  Long answer no with a but."

The ship was travelling 8.5 knots and has a max speed of 22 knots.  So it could have hit with about 7 times more energy than it actually did.

 

Edited March 26 by farmerben

[CBase]

1 hour ago, Arugela said:

Could the bridge supports be rebuild strong enough to actually take a hit from those boats?

I am physicist and no engineer, so take my guess with a grain of salt.

When the passage and safety margins are big enough, you could probably build concrete islands around the piers and divide crash forces off them. Basically the crash should happen somewhere else. A ramp does a great job to transform velocity to lift the vessel, use its mass to increase friction and push the static structure not only away, but into the ground.

Maybe with crash boxes and structures to divert forces could be build in smaller locations as well. But I doubt building stronger is a viable solution.

[farmerben]

The power lines have hexagonal protective structures around them.  No such structure is visible around the bridge piers.

[CBase]

There are quite some studies available:

https://www.gnedenko.net/Journal/2009/022009/RATA_2_2009-05.pdf

At least the german wikipedia webiste has the Francise scott key bridge listed to use floating protections at ~100m distance from the pier, which can be run over by very large vessels like that container ship.

[Kerbart]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

It might be much cheaper to solve the awful quality of mechant mariners these days than build indestructible bridges. Usually it's one licensed captain from Eastern Europe (in this case Sergei, 52, Ukrainian national) and a crew of a dozen barely literate hirelings from the boondocks of South-East Asia, all underpaid. This backfires constantly - sometimes they conspire with oirates, sometimes they ground ships trying to catch a cell signal from ashore cell towers.

Rebuilding bridges was heavily explored during the Cold War. But it basically requires having a spare bridge, usually a spare construction site as well in case the main one gets cratered by a nuke. It's very, very expensive.

Power failure. Perhaps there's a relation with the owner of the ship skimping on maintenance but I doubt it. This was a new vessel (2015), they're incredibly expensive to own and operate so they're generally kept in good condition.

As for the crew, they were competent enough to raise the alarm that stopped traffic on the bridge. Had they not done that, the number of casualties would have been much higher. Not exactly matching the picture that you paint (without any credible citations) of a bunch of clowns.

[tater]

Don't run huge ships into it. There, fixed. They could require tugs, too.

[PakledHostage]

3 hours ago, DDE said:

It might be much cheaper to solve the awful quality of mechant mariners these days than build indestructible bridges. Usually it's one licensed captain from Eastern Europe (in this case Sergei, 52, Ukrainian national) and a crew of a dozen barely literate hirelings from the boondocks of South-East Asia, all underpaid.

I don't think that's fair. The New York Times says that the ship lost power and radioed (presumably to VTS or the Coast Guard) with sufficient lead time to get the bridge closed to traffic. That's why there are *only* 6 people missing.  Question might equally be asked why the ship wasn't accompanied by a tug? What were the regulatory requirements for that? And did they have a pilot on board? I suspect that they did. 

[tater]

3 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

I don't think that's fair. The New York Times says that the ship lost power and radioed (presumably to VTS or the Coast Guard) with sufficient lead time to get the bridge closed to traffic. That's why there are *only* 6 people missing.  Question might equally be asked why the ship wasn't accompanied by a tug? What were the regulatory requirements for that? And did they have a pilot on board? I suspect that they did. 

Why did the ship lose power in the first place? Lights off, then on, then off (then on right before impact?)?

Maintenance clearly slack, which could be crew quality related?

[PakledHostage]

Just now, tater said:

Why did the ship lose power in the first place?

The engines were built by Boeing... Seriously people.

[tater]

9 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

The engines were built by Boeing... Seriously people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Dali

Quote

Dali is propelled by a single low-speed two-stroke crosshead diesel engine coupled to a fixed-pitch propeller. Her main engine, a license-manufactured 9-cylinder MAN-B&W 9S90ME-C9.2[7] unit manufactured by Hyundai Heavy Industries, is rated 41,480 kW (55,630 hp) at 82.5 rpm.[2] Her service speed is 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph).

She was commissioned in 2015. How often do these vessels get maintenance on important mechanical systems? Is that ll done in port, or does engineering crew do some of this? I know literally nothing, but it might have had issues that were allowed to get worse (either by the crew, or the company operating her).

[PakledHostage]

I just think there's a lot of jumping to conclusions going on here. The TSB supposedly hasn't even gotten on-site yet, because rescue crews are still looking for the missing road workers. It seems in poor taste to wag fingers now already.  But that's just my opinion.  As you were. 

[tater]

9 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

I just think there's a lot of jumping to conclusions going on here. The TSB supposedly hasn't even gotten on-site yet, because rescue crews are still looking for the missing road workers. It seems in poor taste to wag fingers now already.  But that's just my opinion.  As you were. 

I wasn't wagging any fingers, I was saying that it's plausibly operator error at some level (that's usually the case I think). Given the air/water temp, the road crew had a few minutes before hypothermia, so I already assumed they were gone (which their company has now said officially). That's really sad.

Interesting that Baltimore protected the power lines better than the bridge piers. Odd choice, the bridge is apparently not very old, seems like sufficient bumpers would have entirely prevented the accident.

[Nuke]

no. physics wins every time. if it could fold a bridge tower like that, what do you think its going to do to an over zealous guard rail. those might be useful for small boats though. tug boats at least add some redundancy in the event of power failure on the main vessel. it also sounds like the ship was over speed, so you might also see a reduction in speed limits. this would increase time to handle problems like these and reduce stress on the ship's power grid (these kinds of vessels tend to have electric omnidirectional thrusters, as a rudder is slow on a ship of this size, titanic effect).

[tater]

15 minutes ago, Nuke said:

no. physics wins every time. if it could fold a bridge tower like that, what do you think its going to do to an over zealous guard rail. those might be useful for small boats though. tug boats at least add some redundancy in the event of power failure on the main vessel. it also sounds like the ship was over speed, so you might also see a reduction in speed limits. this would increase time to handle problems like these and reduce stress on the ship's power grid (these kinds of vessels tend to have electric omnidirectional thrusters, as a rudder is slow on a ship of this size, titanic effect).

Dunno about those sorts of bumper designs, but you'd think with a sharp point, the bow would then glance off—and the barrier can be at some distance. Have such barriers been built at any other port?

[insert_name]

14 minutes ago, tater said:

Dunno about those sorts of bumper designs, but you'd think with a sharp point, the bow would then glance off—and the barrier can be at some distance. Have such barriers been built at any other port?

There are stone barriers blocking the towers for the Veranzo narrows bridge in New York

https://earth.google.com/web/@40.60439396,-74.05263203,-0.01732777a,228.49768441d,20.58168206y,154.92139924h,64.83115515t,-0r

[tater]

I looked it up, they also put "dolphins" in front of those structural elements to protect them. I'd assume the idea would be not RIGHT in front but enough of a distance to slow a larger vessel. Bridge apparently from 1977.

When they rebuild it, would make sense to have a much wider span, and put the piers where the water is too shallow for large vessels. Ie: they run aground before they get close enough to damage the bridge. This from someone who knows exactly zero about any of this. A shame those construction workers died, that's just awful.

[Nuke]

was wrong about the electric thrusters, this thing has a conventional propeller.

[StrandedonEarth]

Every harbor city is taking a close look at their bridge piers today. The consensus seems to be rock barriers a distance away from the bridge towers. 

[kerbiloid]

Anti-ship stone posts across the river.

Spoiler

The main question is:
Afair, the captain had called 911 or so and reported about the ship, which lost control, and possible bridge ramming.
It would take seconds to call the nearest road police car and tell them to put the car across the road to stop traffic.
I believe, there is a pack of police cars near a big bridge, sitting in bushes and hunting the road rule violators.
And?

Is explained in another thread. The traffic was stopped, the construction crew on the bridge was not warned.

Edited March 27 by kerbiloid

[Arugela]

7 hours ago, tater said:

Why did the ship lose power in the first place? Lights off, then on, then off (then on right before impact?)?

Maintenance clearly slack, which could be crew quality related?

That video shows the lights going off then as the lights are off it turns directly into the bridge. then the lights come back on. Is that possible by accident? I hadn't seen that angle before. That is a bizarrely seemingly accurate and fast turn. If so that is a good reason to build structures and not assume good will will always be there. Or just in case of accidents for unforseen reasons. Was it trying to avoid a different obstacle?

If the idea of ramps and various structures both directly around the base supports and possibly making guideing paths towards the allow areas with gaps for smaller vessels and several layers it might be interesting and at least save a bridges. I would think it would be better to safe the traffic in case of transport and logistics and to save lives.

What if the build guide ramps under the water to stop boats of a certain depth from going over them easily and allow more shallow boats to go over the top? Or is that too expensive. Also dotted stone or concrete structures. Basically a guided path for larger vessels. Plus similar around the pillars just in case and for all other vessels.

It's also sad if they didn't warn the construction crew. How could they miss that. Might be a good thing to look into to avoid this in the future.

Edit: if you make the normal pillars around the bridge like the other bridge and an eye shapes deeper ramp like second structure around each base pointing in the same direction as the traffic with the surface cut off to allow shallow boats that might be useful. But I'm guessing it would need some pretty thick concrete laying to make it strong enough.

I assume some ships would need to get in for maintenance or other odd things.

Edited March 27 by Arugela

[tater]

Spoiler

 

 

 

Don't use TT, saw a reference to this guy though. Put it in a spoiler since it seems to constantly run the vid which is annoying

Edited March 27 by tater

[DDE]

Answering to several people at once: yes, a local pilot was present. Intermittent loss of power has been a confirmed problem, the ship was attempting to stop when it rammed the bridge.

As to the captain, this was a hasty misinterpretation of a cursory search turning up a crewing agency page:

Spoiler

In reality he held the post for some time in 2016, about right after the Dali had an unfortunate brush with a pier in Antwerp blamed on poor actions of its crew, and that's it

Spoiler

The Singaporean pictured above (whose job description matches someone who'd be responsible for loss of power) is also not involved, as we now have confirmation that the crew is all-Indian.

https://www.economictimes.com/news/india/crew-of-container-ship-that-collided-with-baltimore-bridge-all-indian-company/amp_articleshow/108796636.cms

My argument still stands. Jacob Rusil Bin, who went from painting walls straight to being helmsman of the cruise ship Consta Concordia and whose non-existent English backfired at the worst possible moment - not that it would have likely saved the ship, but confusing port and starboard didn't help - is a representative example of a seafarer in an industry obsessed with cost-cutting, and, being squeezed on the ecology side, the cutting focuses on personnel costs, with crew selection typically outsourced to outside agencies and guided by the nit particularly stringent requirements of the countries of flags of convenience.

I looked into this some years ago, and pretty much every informal source in two languages back then and now agrees that it's a hellish market of the absolute lowest bidder, no matter the quality (which the shipping companies expect to mitigate through procedures and automation).