Bridge Collapse in Baltimore

[Dude#1279435]

The mayday did save all lives that were driving across. The last two vehicles made it by 30 seconds or so. However, the construction workers not so fortunate. Also as jeffostroff pointed out probably some major lawsuits as no protectors were in place as to buffer the pillars.

 

[Swerd]

… Also as jeffostroff pointed out probably some major lawsuits as no protectors were in place as to buffer the pillars.

This CNN article addresses the liability questions.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/28/business/who-ends-upholdingthebagfor-the-baltimore-bridge-collapse/index.html

New York CNN —
The massive cargo ship crash into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore will likely lead to billions of dollars in liability claims. Marine insurance companies will be on the hook for much of the costs.

With various owners and companies involved – and with some maritime laws predating even the Titanic sinking – untangling the web, figuring out who owes what, and addressing the damages from both lives lost and to physical structures will be complex.

“This claim has the potential to be north of a billion dollars,” said John Miklus, the president of the American Institute of Marine Underwriters. “Litigation will run years.”

The bridge alone could be worth more than $1.2 billion, said Loretta Worters, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute. Then there will almost certainly be large liability suits, medical costs for survivors, clean-up costs, and more, she added.

All this will certainly keep Maritime Liability lawyers busy for many years, even decades. Personally, I think the absence of adequate pylon protection will only be a small issue, compared to all the others.

 

[lovinthehd]

A look from being on board the vessel

 

[Hobbit]

A couple of points have emerged to help clarify things.
The ship had two diesel engines. A large one generated electric power to drive the single propeller as well as providing electric power for steering and other needs on the ship. A second smaller auxiliary diesel engine was available to provide electric power for steering and other uses if the main engine/generator failed.

The Mayday call came by radio after the ship lost power. Was that done by a battery powered hand-held radio, or had the auxiliary diesel electric come online?

It is possible that the two emissions of smoke could be explained 1) by failure of main engine, and 2) by the auxiliary engine as it started. The investigation will probably clear that up.
The collapsed bridge was a continuous truss design that was in use when the Key Bridge was designed in the late 1960s. When built with a 1,200 foot span, it was the third longest continuous truss bridge in the world. It had 4 traffic lanes, and was strong enough for anticipated use when designed, as well as recently.

That continuous truss design is no longer built anywhere. It seems cable-stayed bridges of similar length are now commonly used instead. I'm not sure why, but it's probably cost. It is said that cable-stayed bridges are optimal for spans longer than steel truss/cantilever bridges, but shorter than suspension bridges. They have replaced older steel truss/cantilever bridges, and are favored for new construction in that span range. For longer spans, the previously used steel truss/cantilever bridges become too heavy and more costly, while the cabling for suspension bridges would be more costly.

Cargo vessels in the late 60s and early 70s were about one third the size and weight of those presently used. A 1,200 foot span was adequate by the design standards of the time.

Just why the two main support pylons were placed 1,200 feet apart is not clear. The shipping channel depth was about 50 feet, and about 30 feet at the support pylons. Perhaps the shallow water at the river's edges was enough to prevent large ships from entering.

Obviously, a new bridge will have a longer span, as well as providing more than 4 lanes for traffic. The support pylons will have to be at the river's shore or close enough to the shore to prevent large ships from hitting them. It will probably be a cable-stayed design.

I don't think protective cut-waters can be built large enough to protect the support pylons from 100,000 ton ships. It may be possible, but only at a prohibitive cost.

A more expensive alternative would be a tunnel. At the time the Key Bridge was built, it was the only way trucks carrying hazardous materials, such as gasoline, could cross the Patapsco River. Two tunnels exist further up river, closer to Baltimore, but hazardous cargoes are prohibited in them. For that reason only a bridge was chosen.

Keep in mind, ships this size can take miles to stop on their own. Even at relatively low speeds. Their maneuvering ability isn't that great either. Hence the need for tugs.

 

[lovinthehd]

Keep in mind, ships this size can take miles to stop on their own. Even at relatively low speeds. Their maneuvering ability isn't that great either. Hence the need for tugs.

Tugs were used for the usual navigation of this harbor. Didn't particularly allow for the other problems with power that developed. Maybe it could, just wasn't considered necessary. Things like wind in this case were a factor from what I've seen, and the side of a ship like this is somewhat a sail.

 

[j_garcia]

$15m minimum losses per day just while the port is closed.

 

[Eppie]

On the lighter side, I'm glad Dennis does not have any speakers on that ship. Who knows how long it will be before they move the cargo ship and get all of those containers transferred. So many companies rely on just in delivery these days.

 

[davidscott]

$15m minimum losses per day just while the port is closed.

Wow.

 

[lovinthehd]

With the disruption in shipping due Houthi/Gaza already making issues (IIRC why this vessel was in Baltimore to begin with at this particular time); $15M could just be local operations in Baltimore let alone the effect of this particular load of cargo not making it to market, increased costs due change in accessibility by road etc (the bridge was main way to get oil/gas transport in the area (as the two major tunnels prohibit such cargo)....it's like dominoes.

 

[mtrycrafts]

...Houthi/Gaza already making issues (IIRC why this vessel was in Baltimore to begin with at this particular time); ...

The sick puppies madness never ends and there is no depth.

 

[TLS Guy]

Tugs were used for the usual navigation of this harbor. Didn't particularly allow for the other problems with power that developed. Maybe it could, just wasn't considered necessary. Things like wind in this case were a factor from what I've seen, and the side of a ship like this is somewhat a sail.

I don't know why the tugs left, but I expect one of two reasons. The most likely is that the ship and a tug each side could not pass under that bridge, so the policy was for the tugs to line up the approach and cast off. The other possibility is that they were river tugs and not licensed for the open sea. That bridge is right at the mouth of the river. Ocean tugs are quite different from river tugs, at least there were on the Medway and Thames where I grew up.

In a busy shipping lane like that it is much better to build a tunnel than a bridge.

The victorians built tower bridge as a lift bridge. Deep water ends between Tower Bridge and London Bridge. The river between is known as the pool of London.

The next crossing is Rotherhithe which was the first tunnel ever built under a navigable River. The engineer was Islombard Brunel. A little further down The Blackwall tunnel was built and made four lane when I was a kid. The next tunnel was the Dartford crossing where the river is quite wide. This was a four lane tunnel built in the sixties as part of the London Ring M25. Our family firm was extensively involved in this. Subsequently the QE II bridge was built over the top. So there are now four lanes each way. North is through the tunnel and South is over the bridge. You go way up in the sky and can see for miles. The downside is that in high winds it has to be closed, and the the tunnel is changed to two lanes North and two lanes South. That bridge is a suspension bridge with no piers in the navigable river.

That is still not enough to handle the traffic and so a lower Thames crossing under the estuary is planned. The will go across just North and West of the Medway towns.

River crossings are a huge problem, but you can not have piers in rivers that are navigable to large ocean going vessels. So the next bridge needs to be different and it would be best if it was a tunnel considering how busy that port of Baltimore is. Ships have been renowned for mishaps as long as people have sailed in them.

 

[TLS Guy]

I have looked into that Dali further.

I find that there has been a return to direct diesel propulsion rather than diesel electric. Now you can't have a gearbox that handles that much power. So I have found out that there has been a return to large slow revving 2 cycle diesel engines. The reason for a return to two cycle diesel engines is that they can run in both directions, so no gearbox is required. The starting mechanism is compressed air. So to reverse you stop the engine and spin it the other way by letting compressed air into the right cylinders. This was pioneered by the Swiss firm Saltzer. Pretty much every cargo boat coming into the port of Medway when I was kid had that system. We were personal friends of the guy who was the Saltzer representative in SE UK at the time. So I was able to see it first hand.

Also our launch had a two cycle diesel engine, though not reversing, It had a Borg Warner hydraulic gear box. It was a four cylinder Coventry Climax K9 50 HP at 2000 RPM. It had a Rootes supercharger, as two cycle diesels will not naturally aspirate. They just have an exhaust valve and no inlet valve. If they are horizontally opposed pistons with two opposed pistons per cylinder, then there are no valves. The was the system in my father's next boat, which was three cylinder six piston, horizontally opposed and 120 HP Commer engine, designed by Tilling Smith.

Anyhow the Dali has a super long stroke nine piston in line two cycle diesel engine, which delivers 55,630 HP at 84 RPM. So the engine is connected directly to the propeller with no gearbox. It is a German MAN diesel Turbo S90ME-C9.2 two cycle marine diesel built by Hyundai under license.

For maneuvering in ports, Dali has a single 3,000 kW (4,000 hp) bow thruster. Electricity is generated onboard by two 3,840 kW (5,150 hp) and two 4,400 kW (5,900 hp) auxiliary diesel generators.

So, it seems that all four generators failed and by what happened I suspect the bow thruster did also. It is pretty clear from all that black smoke that the main engine had a catastrophic failure, but how this caused all the other engines and systems to fail is a mystery to me. Hopefully all that will be revealed in the inquiries.

I should add that two cycle diesels are particularly unfriendly to the environment, with not only a high CO2 footprint, but a high raw carbon footprint as well. So it is small wonder that these engines are a target of the environmental lobby.

 

[lovinthehd]

I don't know why the tugs left, but I expect one of two reasons. The most likely is that the ship and a tug each side could not pass under that bridge, so the policy was for the tugs to line up the approach and cast off. The other possibility is that they were river tugs and not licensed for the open sea. That bridge is right at the mouth of the river. Ocean tugs are quite different from river tugs, at least there were on the Medway and Thames where I grew up.

In a busy shipping lane like that it is much better to build a tunnel than a bridge.

The victorians built tower bridge as a lift bridge. Deep water ends between Tower Bridge and London Bridge. The river between is known as the pool of London.

The next crossing is Rotherhithe which was the first tunnel ever built under a navigable River. The engineer was Islombard Brunel. A little further down The Blackwall tunnel was built and made four lane when I was a kid. The next tunnel was the Dartford crossing where the river is quite wide. This was a four lane tunnel built in the sixties as part of the London Ring M25. Our family firm was extensively involved in this. Subsequently the QE II bridge was built over the top. So there are now four lanes each way. North is through the tunnel and South is over the bridge. You go way up in the sky and can see for miles. The downside is that in high winds it has to be closed, and the the tunnel is changed to two lanes North and two lanes South. That bridge is a suspension bridge with no piers in the navigable river.

That is still not enough to handle the traffic and so a lower Thames crossing under the estuary is planned. The will go across just North and West of the Medway towns.

River crossings are a huge problem, but you can not have piers in rivers that are navigable to large ocean going vessels. So the next bridge needs to be different and it would be best if it was a tunnel considering how busy that port of Baltimore is. Ships have been renowned for mishaps as long as people have sailed in them.

The tugs left at their normal exit point from what I've seen and believe it does have to do with the width of the exit between bridge pylons as well as shape of the dredged path for these ships....

 

[lovinthehd]

The sick puppies madness never ends and there is no depth.

Or the idea that the whole world is in sync with major industrial nations "needs"

 

[TLS Guy]

The tugs left at their normal exit point from what I've seen and believe it does have to do with the width of the exit between bridge pylons as well as shape of the dredged path for these ships....

That is what I suspected was the most likely reason. So that bridge should have been replaced long ago. It was actually just an accident waiting to happen.

 

[Swerd]

I don't know why the tugs left, but I expect one of two reasons. The most likely is that the ship and a tug each side could not pass under that bridge, so the policy was for the tugs to line up the approach and cast off.

As far as I've learned, it was standard practice for the tugs to leave before the bridge.

And yes, the bridge span was designed too narrow, leaving the pylons too far into the river, exposed to river traffic.

The other possibility is that they were river tugs and not licensed for the open sea. That bridge is right at the mouth of the river. Ocean tugs are quite different from river tugs, at least there were on the Medway and Thames where I grew up.

The Patapsco River (the Port of Baltimore) flows into the large Chesapeake Bay, not the open sea. In the USA, the Chesapeake Bay is a unique body of water. It is essentially the very large sunken mouth of the Susquehanna River. It consists of brackish water, does experience high & low tides, but is unlike an open body of water like the North Sea, or an ocean. The Chesapeake Bay opens to the Atlantic much further south at Norfolk, VA.

In a busy shipping lane like that it is much better to build a tunnel than a bridge.

As mentioned before, a tunnel would prohibit trucks carrying flammable cargoes, such as gasoline. There are two tunnels further upstream closer to Baltimore, but the former Francis Scott Key Bridge was needed to allow gasoline tanker trucks to cross the river.

The collapsed bridge should be replaced by a larger cable-stayed bridge with a span long enough to protect pylons from collisions with increasingly large container ships. For example the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Bay, FL or the Second Severn Crossing (Prince of Wales Bridge) in the UK.

 

[highfigh]

I have looked into that Dali further.

I find that there has been a return to direct diesel propulsion rather than diesel electric. Now you can't have a gearbox that handles that much power. So I have found out that there has been a return to large slow revving 2 cycle diesel engines. The reason for a return to two cycle diesel engines is that they can run in both directions, so no gearbox is required. The starting mechanism is compressed air. So to reverse you stop the engine and spin it the other way by letting compressed air into the right cylinders. This was pioneered by the Swiss firm Saltzer. Pretty much every cargo boat coming into the port of Medway when I was kid had that system. We were personal friends of the guy who was the Saltzer representative in SE UK at the time. So I was able to see it first hand.

Also our launch had a two cycle diesel engine, though not reversing, It had a Borg Warner hydraulic gear box. It was a four cylinder Coventry Climax K9 50 HP at 2000 RPM. It had a Rootes supercharger, as two cycle diesels will not naturally aspirate. They just have an exhaust valve and no inlet valve. If they are horizontally opposed pistons with two opposed pistons per cylinder, then there are no valves. The was the system in my father's next boat, which was three cylinder six piston, horizontally opposed and 120 HP Commer engine, designed by Tilling Smith.

Anyhow the Dali has a super long stroke nine piston in line two cycle diesel engine, which delivers 55,630 HP at 84 RPM. So the engine is connected directly to the propeller with no gearbox. It is a German MAN diesel Turbo S90ME-C9.2 two cycle marine diesel built by Hyundai under license.

For maneuvering in ports, Dali has a single 3,000 kW (4,000 hp) bow thruster. Electricity is generated onboard by two 3,840 kW (5,150 hp) and two 4,400 kW (5,900 hp) auxiliary diesel generators.

So, it seems that all four generators failed and by what happened I suspect the bow thruster did also. It is pretty clear from all that black smoke that the main engine had a catastrophic failure, but how this caused all the other engines and systems to fail is a mystery to me. Hopefully all that will be revealed in the inquiries.

I should add that two cycle diesels are particularly unfriendly to the environment, with not only a high CO2 footprint, but a high raw carbon footprint as well. So it is small wonder that these engines are a target of the environmental lobby.

YouTube has a video indicating that the Dali had been serviced before the collision.

 

[TLS Guy]

YouTube has a video indicating that the Dali had been serviced before the collision.

That's old news, but it does raise the possibility that someone did something stupid. I think the possibility of a terrorist act should not be dismissed. It seems that the main engine and two main generators and two back up generators all failed. So that raises the possibility that the fuel was tampered with.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Let's not forget when the bridge was designed and built designers or whoever didn't imagine such monster cargo ships. And there may have been a rush to design and build.
Highways are routinely being expanded instead designing more now for future expansions.

 

[TLS Guy]

Let's not forget when the bridge was designed and built designers or whoever didn't imagine such monster cargo ships. And there may have been a rush to design and build.
Highways are routinely being expanded instead designing more now for future expansions.

I contend that bridge was an inadequate design back then. A much smaller ship than that could have brought that bridge down. You can't have vital support piers anywhere near that shipping channel. That bridge should have been a suspension bridge or better tunnel from the beginning.