new York TimesAccording to reports, the container ship “Daily” crashed into the “Francis Scott Key Bridge” (Francis Scott Key Bridge) in the port of Baltimore on the morning of the 26th. At that time, the cargo ship lost power and was moving slowly, but the effect was equivalent to a rocket launch.

Why does a cargo ship traveling slower than a bicycle have such a powerful impact? The answer lies in its sheer size: one-third to one-half the size of the Empire State Building.

It may take months or even years for engineers to carefully simulate a disaster, taking all aspects into account. But The Times used the limited data available to understand the likely severity of the collision.

Even the simplest calculations show that the force of impact was enormous.

If the “cast” is fully loaded, the force required to decelerate and stop is estimated to be 12 million newtons, approximately three times the force required for the “Saturn V” rocket launched by the Apollo moon landing missions. is times.

But the New York Times’s higher estimate, which was reviewed by several civil engineering experts, showed that the impact force on the pillars was realistic at 100 million newtons.

“It’s more powerful than you think,” said Ben Schaefer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

“Given the size of the container ship, a bridge is unlikely,” said Nii Attoh-Okin, an engineering professor at the University of Maryland. He said that Baltimore’s bridge was performing well before the accident and believed that if such a container ship had collided with it, 95 to 99 percent of the bridge would have been damaged.

United States (TagstoTranslate) New York Times