Associate
Federal bank or reserve or the same.
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Baltimore Bridge
- Thread starter imtoooldforthis
- Start date
Associate
You are correct in that there should be lighting and various other systems on UPS (uninteruptsble power supply) batteries which should stay on, then an emergency generator should kick in to power various other systems after a set period of time. I can't remember the exact details off the top of my head but there's a lot of regulation about this sort of stuff and it all has to be tested regularly.
In terms of advance warning, not really. I was on a ship where we lost power and it came pretty much out of the blue. A gasket failed on a steam line that happened to be located in the same room as a lot of critical electrical components. Didn't know that was going to happen until all the smoke alarms in the space started to go off as the room filled with steam. That was a fun evening. Luckily we were in the open sea in good weather but if we had been in the same place as that container ship then something similar could've happened.
You'd be amazed how often thing go wrong on ship, just mostly it happens far from land and so there are no real consequences. Unfortunately when there are consequences, they tend to be big.
You don't need to stop it you just need to deflect it, various bridges do actually have this sort of protection and in the case of the Baltimore bridge there appear to be some other poles in the water in front of the bridge that are protected, sadly the bridge itself isn't.
Speculation, what if it was fire related or some sort of explosion. Something that delay/prevent back up systems kicking in properly.
Associate
Could be. You get a fire in the wrong place then you could black out definitely. As you say though, its all speculation until they investigate. Only people that know what happened are those on board and even they might not be sure what caused it at this point.
I think deflecting would be just as hard if not harder, since you don’t know the direction of travel.
You don't need to know the direction of travel (though you'd have a reasonable idea from both directions) it's still easier (requires less force) than stopping it.
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Suspended
You have a pretty good idea on the direction of travel in rivers and estuaries...
Soldato
“Chief, what does this breaker d-“
Suspended
Seen that before too!
Associate
Ships can blackout all the time. When that ship was on pilotage the electrical supply would have been coming from at least two auxiliary engines which would have powered its bow/stern thrusters which are used for manoeuvring as well as its general electrical supply.
If it then has a main switchboard failure, the emergency generator should start and supply power - this cannot supply power to heavy consumers such as bow thrusters but can run steering gear. I’ve not seen the videos but it sounds to me like it has had a main switchboard failure and the emergency set may not have started or by the time it has (they start in seconds), the ship my have already been badly off track due to current, tide, etc. The flickering lights would be an indication of loosing power and then regaining power from one switchboard to switchboard.
If it then has a main switchboard failure, the emergency generator should start and supply power - this cannot supply power to heavy consumers such as bow thrusters but can run steering gear. I’ve not seen the videos but it sounds to me like it has had a main switchboard failure and the emergency set may not have started or by the time it has (they start in seconds), the ship my have already been badly off track due to current, tide, etc. The flickering lights would be an indication of loosing power and then regaining power from one switchboard to switchboard.
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You need to know the direction of travel because with that you can calculate the angle of impact.
To deflect an object you must stop its velocity it one direction and then accelerate it in another direction.
A low angle of impact (probably less than 15 degrees basically glancing past the barrier) would indeed require far less energy than trying to stop it. However as the angle increases so does the energy requirement and at a certain angle the energy requirement to deflect the ship would exceed the energy just to stop it.
my comment about direction of travel was more so, that those waters are quite open and the exact approach angle of any ship can differ as there is no physical object/barrier that forces them to stay on a certain course.
Soldato
The classic trick is to wait for someone to try and sync a generator to the board, and just as they click connect in the IAS or close the breaker if doing it from the switchboard room, flick the light switch off. The initial look of horror, followed by fury when they realise what happened, is something truly to behold.
Caporegime
The private companies are going to be licking their lips to get this contract to rebuild the bridge. All the cows at once have come home to be milked.
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Absolutely, it'll be a $1 billion+ and by the time it's done it'll have doubled or tripled in cost.
Soldato
So many expert structural engineers on this thread.....
oh and the MV Dali was fully loaded with over 9000 containers (over 100,000 tons) and was leaving the Port to head to Sri Lanka; energy of the impact is a straightforward mass x velocity
oh and the MV Dali was fully loaded with over 9000 containers (over 100,000 tons) and was leaving the Port to head to Sri Lanka; energy of the impact is a straightforward mass x velocity
Associate
How do you get that like? Its capacity is over 9000 TEU’s. Most of them would have been forty foot containers so that’s not 9000 containers. The DWT figure is what it can carry and it is highly unlikely to be carrying its maximum tonnage.