Baltimore bridge collapse

[ro250]

Be interested to hear an engineer's view on the collapse as I was surprised to see the whole thing go down, especially the first section to the right.

[julian987R]

Not withstanding the plight of the workers....incredibly it seems like no cars were going across at that exact moment in time.

[Bluequay]

Having watched the video it appears to have at least happened at a point when there were no vehicles on the section of the bridge that collapsed. It doesn't go on long enough to show if traffic on other parts of the bridge had time to react after the section went down.

Very scary how quickly and easily it went down.

[wombat172a]

ro250 said:

Be interested to hear an engineer's view on the collapse as I was surprised to see the whole thing go down, especially the first section to the right.

I wouldn't call myself an engineer anymore, but you're looking at disproportionate / progressive collapse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_collapse

[Electronicpants]

essayer said:

Full vid - looks like the ship was losing power repeatedly and drifting

https://x.com/truth68201238/status/177253444159373...

Construction going on on the bridge, you can see the flashing lights of the vehicles stationary through the video before the strike, poor bds.

[LimaDelta]

ro250 said:

Be interested to hear an engineer's view on the collapse as I was surprised to see the whole thing go down, especially the first section to the right.

Enjoy - Poly Bridge Game


Edit - not meant to make light of the situation, more to educate those who are unaware how many interlinked structures rely on each other for strength and support. Take away one element and the whole lot comes down.

[phumy]

That went down far too easily, maybe there was maintenance going on on the bridge at that time.

[dxg]

You forget about the poor state of repair of many US bridges - esp. steel ones.

See the I-35 bridge collapse. Which also had people working on it at the time. But no ship.

[Lotobear]

LimaDelta said:

ro250 said:

Be interested to hear an engineer's view on the collapse as I was surprised to see the whole thing go down, especially the first section to the right.

Enjoy - Poly Bridge Game


Edit - not meant to make light of the situation, more to educate those who are unaware how many interlinked structures rely on each other for strength and support. Take away one element and the whole lot comes down.

An absence of redundancy in the structure - probably an old design.

That footage is truly shocking

[av185]

Support piers into the river take both compression and tension loadings so if one pier is compromised the whole cantilever structure likely to fail.

[julian987R]

Baltimore are sayIng ‘partial’ damage. If that’s partial then I’d hate to see what is more than that.
And Sky News are saying ‘some damage’

[ro250]

LimaDelta said:

ro250 said:

Be interested to hear an engineer's view on the collapse as I was surprised to see the whole thing go down, especially the first section to the right.

Enjoy - Poly Bridge Game


Edit - not meant to make light of the situation, more to educate those who are unaware how many interlinked structures rely on each other for strength and support. Take away one element and the whole lot comes down.

Thanks (and wombat172a, I don't know how to do that multi-quote thing).

I'd wrongly assumed there was some independence in these structures to prevent complete failure in situations like this. Obviously not here.

[Vipers]

BBC news has a vid of it falling down, imagine that during the day with busy vehicles.

[troika]

Crikey. Let’s hope casualties are as minimal as possible.

Imagine the insurance discussions which will ensue!

[Hammersia]

Lotobear said:

LimaDelta said:

ro250 said:

Be interested to hear an engineer's view on the collapse as I was surprised to see the whole thing go down, especially the first section to the right.

Enjoy - Poly Bridge Game


Edit - not meant to make light of the situation, more to educate those who are unaware how many interlinked structures rely on each other for strength and support. Take away one element and the whole lot comes down.

An absence of redundancy in the structure - probably an old design.

That footage is truly shocking

There's really no such thing as redundancy for structures like that, it will be the same result if a ship crashes into the right part of the Forth rail bridge.

The possible weak point / unluckiness in this case is that the deck level on these massive recent cargo ships protuded out far enough to catch the steel upright pillars (rather than the hull hitting the concrete abutment first).

(Example of Forth bridge with small cargo ship to give an idea)

[abzmike]

Maybe it's the perspective of the video, but that ship looks way too tall to be anywhere near that bridge.

[greygoose]

troika said:

Crikey. Let’s hope casualties are as minimal as possible.

Imagine the insurance discussions which will ensue!

I’m not sure 50/50 is a possibility…..

[Petrus1983]

Really sad to watch. Happening at 1.30am is a small blessing - but as for the cars and construction workers then their fate is probably pretty grim.

Here's the scene in the air at the moment - perhaps the helicopters directing boats underneath?

[gotoPzero]

Very strange. There are big concrete barriers before the main bridge legs but it looks like they came at a slight angle and missed those.
The bridge is a bit longer than what you see in the video too, which is why they call it a "partial" collapse.

A ship of that size and fully loaded as it departs would slice through that bridge like butter - as we saw.

[Ganglandboss]

abzmike said:

Maybe it's the perspective of the video, but that ship looks way too tall to be anywhere near that bridge.

It must have been under it previously, as the bridge passes over the harbour entrance, and the ship was leaving.