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Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

wbaltv.com

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Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#481

Post by ajdude »

jxdxbx wrote: post #136

Not that it matters to anyone else, but having driven across that bridge dozens of times with my kids, this is just shocking. It’s one of the main corridors in the area. Thank god it happened in the middle of the night, though that’ll be no consolation to the families of those who may have died.

I was incredibly worried about my dad, he's a truck driver and drove that bridge just an hour prior to this happening.

I'm hearing there were at least 20 cars and a truck on the bridge, plus construction workers, at the time; my heart goes out to those families

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#482

Post by ianburrell »

jordanb wrote: post #464
lenerdenator wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How common are power outages on ships? I get that the captain might not have responded to it correctly but that seems like a thing that shouldn't happen, at least in my completely uneducated opinion.

According to this book: https://www.amazon.com/Tankship-Tromedy-Impending-Disasters-... It is quite common and vessels often have outages that leave them Not Under Command. Usually they are safely at sea when this happens and they can drift for hours without causing problems. But of course there's always a possibility of it happening at exactly the wrong moment. The reasons for this are the usual: lack of redundancy,…

It wouldn't help with this accident, but you would think that the electronics would be on batteries. It wouldn't be too hard to have rack of batteries that would power the lights, instruments, radios, and sensors. Doesn't help if the propulsion or steering go out, but does make easier to know whats going on.

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#483

Post by kergonath »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #282
kamaal wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But I guess I thought that maybe there was... typically some kind of earthen buffer around the pillar to prevent such an impact? It does look reasonable to have such a buffer. But any preventive measure will have limits as what and how serious an impact it can deal with. In this case the ship this massive is something that is carrying ridiculous inertia, and its highly unlikely even a buffer could stop such an impa…

It wouldn't take as much of a buffer to redirect the ship at an angle away from the pillar, would it?

I think this would be even harder. Whilst the ship has a lot of kinetic energy that needs to get dissipated, it also has a huge momentum that needs to be partly overcome to redirect it. You’d also need a material with enough structural strength to turn the ship. Materials that can crumple or deform (like huge concrete blocks or earthworks) are great at dissipating energy, but they aren’t great at deflecting things.

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#484

Post by purpleidea »

testfoobar wrote: post #10

You can look back on the livestream here to see the collision and collapse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg

Not sure how to yt-dlp a big section of that video without downloading hours and hours... I found this tool but not going to install C# for it.

https://github.com/rytsikau/ee.Yrewind/

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#485

Post by cududa »

spenczar5 wrote: post #475
secstate wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean this was effectively captain error? Like in response to a power outage the decision was made to try to reverse and rather than arrest forward momentum it just pushed their forward vector into the piling?

Captain, or pilot? In Baltimore, as in most harbors, a local pilot comes on board to guide the ship. Is this their responsibility?

I too, have read about Baltimore pilots for the first time today. If you’d read a bit further, the Pilots use either intercoms and sometimes radios to send instructions to the captain while they’re elsewhere on the ship. If they were using intercoms, and there was no power, that would do it

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#488

Post by myself248 »

ianburrell wrote: post #482
jordanb wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this book: https://www.amazon.com/Tankship-Tromedy-Impending-Disasters-... It is quite common and vessels often have outages that leave them Not Under Command. Usually they are safely at sea when this happens and they can drift for hours without causing problems. But of course there's always a possibility of it happening at exactly the wrong moment. The reasons for this are the usual: lack of redundancy,…

It wouldn't help with this accident, but you would think that the electronics would be on batteries. It wouldn't be too hard to have rack of batteries that would power the lights, instruments, radios, and sensors. Doesn't help if the propulsion or steering go out, but does make easier to know whats going on.

At least in small craft, bow thrusters are usually electric, with local batteries charged from the main engine room. I don't know what large craft are like, but it doesn't seem unreasonable that a bow thruster may remain operable even if the main engine fails. Clearly that's not required or they would've had it and used it, but it could be required if the regulations didn't suck.

Furthermore, steering could absolutely have an electric backup for the hydraulic pumps that power the main steering gear. As long as there's some forward speed through the water, the rudder should work. But again, backups clearly aren't required or they would've worked here.

Steer-by-wire cars are required to have all sorts of redundancy so they're almost as safe as steering-shaft cars in case of an engine failure. This is a 9,900TEU ship with a 41480 kw powerplant. That a ship with so much more destructive potential is allowed to operate without the same level of redundancy as a $90k Audi, is unconscionable.

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#489

Post by kergonath »

Reason077 wrote: post #284
b33j0r wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interested in this claim, because it sounds about right, except that I can’t name a bridge constructed in the past 50 years. The bridges we can all name are pushing 100+ right?

The Crimean bridge is quite (in)famous, and it was built quite recently. The Millau Viaduct also comes to mind when thinking of famous, iconic modern bridges.

The Øresund Bridge as well (opened in 2000).

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#490

Post by myself248 »

mixedmath wrote: post #290
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I lived in PG county for years and this is a big deal The 295 bridge collapse a decade ago was similarly shocking U.S. infrastructure is beyond crisis level.

I'm not sure if I would expect any bridge to survive being struck by an enormous container ship.

A lot of bridges have their pilings set on mini islands, terrifically reinforced piles of stone and concrete that extend for quite some distance around the actual support. I don't know why some are built without that, it always weirds me out seeing the spindly legs going straight into the water, and this is why.

Edit to add: Check out Fort Carroll, precisely such an artificial island just a few hundred yards away in the very same harbor. It was built in the 1840's as a military position to defend the harbor, and has fallen into disuse. Now just imagine if the bridge sat on a couple of those, instead of the foundations it had. Ship would've barely dented the wall.

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