{"id":11689,"date":"2024-04-24T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=11689"},"modified":"2024-04-12T07:17:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T07:17:37","slug":"dali-hit-key-bridge-with-the-force-of-66-heavy-trucks-at-highway-speed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/dali-hit-key-bridge-with-the-force-of-66-heavy-trucks-at-highway-speed\/","title":{"rendered":"Dali hit Key Bridge with the force of 66 heavy trucks at highway speed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n The Baltimore bridge didn\u2019t stand a chance.\n AP Photo\/Julia Nikhinson<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\nAmanda Bao<\/a>, Rochester Institute of Technology<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n
\n \"A<\/a>\n
\n <\/span>\n CC BY-ND<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

The cargo ship Dali<\/a> knocked down three main truss spans, constructed with connected steel elements forming triangles, on the Francis Scott Key Bridge<\/a> just seconds after crashing into one of the bridge piers early on Tuesday morning, March 26, 2024. <\/p>\n\n

The bridge collapse happened so fast that it left little time for the work crews on the bridge to escape. Civil engineers like me have been paying attention to this disaster, because we want to find ways to make<\/a> infrastructure like these large bridges more resilient. For a bridge this large to collapse would require a catastrophic collision force. But using some basic physics principles, we can actually estimate approximately what that force was.<\/p>\n\n

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