 And this series is the Think Tech Tech Talk series, and we're going to understand the Dolly, the container ship Dolly, and the Francis Scott Key Bridge are really an important issue for the country. And of course, for the engineers in academia, engineering to the causes and the repair. So for this discussion, we have professors Song Choi, he's the assistant dean of the School of Engineering at UH Manoa. Welcome to the show, Song. Hi, Jay. Always good to see you, Matt. Yeah. So tell us where you are. You're not in your regular place. You're not at home all at all. You're somewhere else. Where are you? Home. I haven't been home since the pandemic started. I've always gone to my office. And today, I am here. I am at the science fair because we have all these upcoming genius youngsters. And we've got to make sure they go into things like engineering so they can help out with this situation that we've gotten ourselves into. So this is a structural engineering question, right? This is a structural engineering, I think, a planning and the fact that structures are not forever. Yeah. I guess there's also a question of material science, isn't it? Because you have steel. You have concrete. You have to know how these materials work, right? Oh, always the material thing. You know, you look at our airplanes, they become so much more efficient because we use composites and non-metallic materials that are lighter but stronger. So always a material question. Okay. So a week ago, we have this huge container ship. We don't realize how big they are. And we should have known from what happened in the Suez Canal a couple of months ago. But these ships are so big that they straddle the canal and stop all the other traffic. And this is the ship of that size with thousands of containers, huge tonnage, and it's out of control and it hits a bridge abutment in the middle of the harbor, I guess, the river accessing the harbor. And presto, we have this incredible catastrophe. So at the same time, we have a bridge that folded like an erectus set when it got hit. Sorry. That takes me back. So can you talk about the dynamics, the physical forces in that collision? Okay. Well, let's start with the size of the ship. Everybody thinks about a container ship and they go, oh, yeah, it's a big ship. You've got to remember it's 980 plus feet long. That's 300 meters. I don't even know if at my age now I can run 300 meters. I mean, you know, forget the fact that I used to be able to sprint those 100 meters when I was a younger kid. 300 meters, three football field is a long way. And on top of that, look at the weight. What was it like? 100,000 tons or something like that? Or it was an enormous amount of weight. So you have something that big moving and, you know, people make it sound like it's not a big thing because they're, oh, they're moving at eight miles an hour. What do you do? Blah, blah, blah. That's about walk a little, you know, twice the size, three times the speed of your walking speed because I think they say we walk in about three miles an hour. But you remember that whole thing about momentum? Momentum is mass times speed. I don't care how slow you're going. When you got that much mass, it takes a lot of effort to stop it. And whether that bridge was built to withstand boats bigger or bigger than that or somewhere around that side, remember the bridge was built many, many, many years ago. 1977. That's right. That's what? 40 years ago? 40 plus years ago? And interestingly, our ships have been becoming larger and becoming more efficient and carrying weight. So what was built back in the 70s to withstand the larger ship may not even be a little tugboat anymore. So that is the one thing I was saying that structures are not permanent and they change in dynamic. When you have that kind of weight, mass, momentum, going against even the hardest wall, it is going to hit, then maybe even push back. And like you said, man, as strong as erector sets can be, they are not going to hold up and stop a ship moving at what, was it eight knots, 10 miles an hour, whatever? That's got 100,000 tons. You don't stop that. How do you normally stop a container ship of that size and weight? I know how they stop cars. You step on your brake and your tire screech because the tires are in touch with the ground. But think about how airplanes stop. You'd have to have some sort of big panels come up to have resistance against the air. Some boats do have some like rudder systems where they can have resistance against the water. Of course, the other way is you turn your engine into reverse to try to slow it down. All these efforts are a small portion of how to slow it down. Oh, I forgot. I guess you could drop anchor and try to drag your anchor. But, you know, this is a lot of weight. You don't stop something that big instantaneously. It just doesn't work. So if it keeps on going, and in this case, it somehow lost power, which is a whole other issue. If you don't have power, you can't reverse the engines. You can't change the direction really. It's not like there's a rudder on the back that will immediately turn it around. So then it's cruising at the full ocean speed, whatever that was, you know, the full inland ocean speed at, say, eight knots, and it's going to hit that bridge. What happens at the moment of collision? At the moment of collision, like anything else, if we're watching football, any sport, when you have two things coming together at a certain speed, one happens to weigh more than the other, the other side has to give. And in this case, the bridge did give. Some of the parts broke, but it did stop the ship. So obviously, the concrete structure that's in the base was strong enough to stop this or slow this down. But the upper aspect that's holding up the safety aspect of all the, you know, the transportation, the traffic go by, it wasn't strong enough to do that. And it just happened to come down. So yeah, it really got mangled. If you were going to design this, you know, with hindsight, what changes would you make from an engineering point of view to avoid this or to minimize that damage? Well, number one, maybe the first thing you want to think about is, do we absolutely need a bridge there? If that is such a high traffic boat area, and it's going in and out, do you really need a bridge there? That should be the number one question. And then the number two question is, how can you make it with a large enough opening so there are no issues like this in the future, as well as make a concrete structure or some sort of structure? Like you said, maybe new materials that can withstand something like this to be built so you can have both the water and the road track. Now, you know, I'm going to give a good example, and I'm not trying to downplay any of the things that happened, but you got to go back and remember the whole 9-11 incident. Those two Twin Towers in New York City were built in the 60s to withstand the largest plane about the size of a 707 and the amount of field they carried. However, the planes that ran into the Trade Center were 747 much bigger planes, and they're carrying fuel that was a much higher octane, burns at a higher temperature. So it was the temperature created by the fuel that weakened the steel structures and the two buildings just imploded down. I think in a similar sense, this structure built in the 70s, fantastic back then, and we're so lucky that there were no accidents prior to this. Maybe we're built for slightly smaller cargo ships, and they did all the calculations and said, hey, this is the biggest one, boom, it would stand it. Well, as you've seen and as I've seen, even though fuel costs may be going up, I've noticed cars getting bigger, planes getting bigger, boats getting bigger. That means there has to be a change in the dynamics of how the structures are going to react, and I think that's what happened. I guess you could say it was predictable that ships to carry more weight, ships more containers, we're going to get bigger and be more efficient, and that's the way the global transportation system works now. I really wonder whether anybody from a political or a capital point of view would want to shrink the size of these ships, because that would shrink the efficiencies and it would increase the cost of moving things and thus the cost of the goods that you buy. So the question is, what can we do with this bridge? Of course, as you said, maybe it's in the wrong place. Maybe we shouldn't have bridges in such critical junctures in our marine transportation system. But one thing that strikes me strong is if you had the strongest possible bridge abutment, concrete support for the bridge, could you make a bridge A with stronger steel, a stronger design, and B, and here's one I'm throwing at you from left field, what about providing a shearing mechanism? So if some marine traffic hits a section of the bridge, it shears right off without destroying the whole bridge. Would that work? Could that be done? Is that something that a newly designed bridge could have? I think modularity is something you can look into, but I don't know how good that would be in terms of safety for the traffic that's traveling on the bridge. When you shear something off, it's still going to break off and go into the water. So I think newer materials, because there's material science research going on all the time, stronger design. Yes, maybe there is a honeycomb design that can be stronger. What I was actually thinking was something that maybe people were not considering. Maybe take that bridge and if you can dig it deep enough, make it into a tunnel so it doesn't get in the way of the boat. So I think there are many different ways to look at it. I'm sure back in the 70s, building tunnels, except for like the Midtown Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel, going from Manhattan to Jersey and Northern Ireland. We're not really considered, but look at the tunnels now. You have the channel between England and France. That's relatively deep and relatively long. You have the Shinkansen Tunnel going from Honshu to Hokkaido. They're a long tunnel and as long as they can be dug deep enough where it doesn't interfere with the depth of the ship, which was a problem that the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal, they all had. Maybe there's a way to get around this. Right? But I'm sure back then in the 70s, these possibilities were not even considered. Maybe because the technology didn't warrant them the ability to make these things. I wonder if a tunnel takes longer to build. Oh yeah, of course. You have to dig it. You have to have all kinds of systems to pressurize the ground excavation and so forth. That would be a better solution. Nobody is talking about that, but I agree with you. What about making a bridge higher, higher off the water? I don't know if that would prevent this accident, but would that be a good idea? I mean, higher off the water means larger ships can go under it. So they're higher and wider, so there's less chance of the boats crashing into it. Maybe putting up extra concrete wall as a tunnel system so they avoid the main structures, some sort of safety system along those lines. Maybe those are all possibilities. But the other thing that I'm really curious about is some of the things that you and I are very used to when we are younger. I thought all those big ships were guided in by tugboats. So maybe there's a reason why they don't do this at this harbor, but maybe that's something logistically they have to reconsider as part of their process and procedures in getting in and out of a harbor. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great question because historically, hundreds of years really, tugboats have been guiding large ships into harvests, and you have a pilot on the tugboat or the ship or both who is going to find the best course. So if you lose power, a tugboat hopefully can save you. I'm reminded of a crash with the oceanic independence in Kauai where they had power, but the pilot was wrong. And he went to the wrong side of the channel and they cut the bottom of the ship and it might have been a really bad and fatal casualty, but luckily there was a double bottom and that saved it. But you have to have these systems on these ships. You have to have the pilot, the tugboat, maybe a double bottom. You have to have systems that will warn, that will alarm if there's anything wrong with the propulsion system. What happened here? They lost propulsion and they had no way to move in any direction and the thing was essentially drifting into the bridge. How is that possible in the year 2024? I don't know. I mean, maybe this ship was not required or did not have a redundant system. It seemed like they had some sort of a smaller propulsion system that they were trying to use to move this behemoth weight around. But as you said at the beginning, something that large doesn't change directions instantaneously. And also it's in its own water. Water kind of moves where you're going. It's not like ground, like rubber on ground, where somewhere it'll stop. And I believe obviously the bridge's pillar was the stopping mechanism for the ship. Yeah, I'm not sure, but you actually may need propulsion, a powertrain of some kind to even drop the anchor. So what I'm saying is you really have to have backup systems and the sort of thing. You can't lose power. You can't do that. And if you're going to lose power, you have to have ways to control the ship, maybe a backup power system. And you have to have emergency systems that will help you deal with it. And you have to have emergency communication systems that will tell the whole world what's happening and that you're about to have an enormous disaster. As you say, this could have been much worse in terms of loss of life. It happened in the middle of the night and there was nobody on the bridge. And a half a dozen people on the bridge were in the wrong place. Some of them barely, barely escaped. So from an engineering point of view, I don't know what you would do to save this, because the ship is so big, the hull can only be yay, strong. And the engines can only be yay reliable. Do you have any ideas about how a ship like this, a container ship like this, so big can avoid the impact of losing power? Oh, God. As we go to more automated systems, we're always looking at redundancy. And much of the redundancy not only is on the computer capacities and controlling aspect, but it's also on the actuators. So obviously a plane that has two engines may be safer than a plane with one engine, because at least if the one engine is still working, you have a way of some sort of minimized maneuverability. A boat, but this big? I'm trying to figure out how big those engines must be. There must be so many engines in tandem that are working to run this one huge propeller, which is probably easily the size of most high-rise buildings. And you're turning that and to even get that started to turn, the amount of torque that you need is going to be incredible. And once it starts moving, and the ship starts moving, then you have a pretty much a free-moving system. That's why when they travel at open sea, there is very little issue unless somebody happens to get in the way, and it's really hard for them to get out of the way, right? So yeah, I don't know. Does that mean we need new policies on safety measures? Do ships need to be checked more regularly for past instances where they may have had failures and make sure they have the right maintenance and repair records? I think all these things have to come into play. Oh, they will. There'll be a big investigation from another point of view. On the licensing issue is who was controlling the ship on the harbor issue, about the regulations in the harbor, about all the marine engineering issues on the side of the ship. The National Transportation Safety Board will be working for years to pick up all the issues and come up with solutions. One thing that strikes me though is a lot of ships have bow thrusters, and the bow thruster is a propeller that runs 90 degrees to the axis of the ship, and it can turn the ship. It is used to turn the ship in tight circumstances, and of course it is dependent on the powertrain of the ship. But if you had a separate powertrain just to drive the bow thrusters, assuming that the main propellers were non-functional, you might be able to turn the ship with the bow thrusters. I don't know if a container ship has that or if this container ship had that, but it strikes me that is one small step that could be taken to avoid just to right the ship in the proper configuration, the proper angle, so that it could be controlled. You know, I wanted to ask you also about the bridge. Okay, here's the bridge. It's sections, it's twisted steel like a pretzel. It was like a mile or two long this bridge. A lot of steel, a lot of steel came down. So clearly, how do you get it out of there? There was some report about the federal government allocated $60 million just for a crane, and they brought in this huge big crane to, you know, try to take the pieces out. But that is also dangerous. That is also difficult. Can you talk about removing, you know, I don't know, thousands of tons of steel to make a channel, to restore the channel so other ships could, you know, could reach Baltimore? Yeah, I mean, you know, as I do that, it is really easy to accumulate stuff, but it's really hard to clean your house up. I think it's the same thing. Yeah, I think it's the same thing. I think you got debris there where it may be in awkward positions. And these are awkward shapes. You know, it's one thing to pick up 10 pounds. That's a little brick like this, but it may be very difficult to pick up 10 pounds. That's a piece like that. So the overall balancing and removal of all these things on other ships to be moved out and a channel or a route to be opened up so ships can get in and out so we don't have this whole supply chain issue or our consumer need issue. I think it's going to be huge. And I think it is going to take a lot of logistics, a lot of careful planning on the Coast Guard, the maritime people, the, I think Army Corps of Engineers is there. All those cranes, that big crane, maybe they need more because the quicker they can clean this up, the quicker we can get back to quote unquote life in a little bit more of a normal state where we have things and we have less of this supply chain issue. It's not going to be easy. No, you mentioned that if the piece of steel is long, as opposed to just one lump of steel, it's much harder to handle. Of course, it swings and you have balance issues, right? And one side may go down while the other one goes up and you can't move it so easily. But you know, it strikes me that a lot of the steel down there, either above or below, first below the waterline, the long pieces of steel, maybe hundreds of feet, and somebody's got to go down my right and cut it. Somebody's got to take a torch down there and make it to manageable pieces. Can you actually take a torch below the waterline? Can you cut steel? How does that work? So, you know, all these equipment that we have to manipulate things like steel, they can all be done. And, you know, the process is pretty much the same. They just have different equipment for different environments. Now, the difficult part is anytime you cut something, you've got to secure it so it doesn't just fall down. So, there is an issue where if there are other things down there that need to be protected before things are cut, those things are going to have to be put into place, those safety measures, right? So, like I said, it's not going to be a simple, oh yeah, let's just get a scissor, cut them all up, pick up the pieces and go. Because these are large, heavy pieces, and they are, like you and I have been talking about, very awkward shapes. And awkward shapes that make it much more difficult to move, remove, transport, right? So, it's going to be a lot of logistic issues. And then once they get that done, they have to also look at what type of effect removing of some of these pieces are going to have on the ship itself, right? I don't know if there was any report about the extent of the damage in the ship. So, maybe they're going to remove something and the ship's just going to go sink right down the bottom. Who knows? So, I think they have to look at all these aspects before some of these actions are taking place. Yeah, why does it remind me of getting on a tree and sewing off the branch and then realizing that you're on the branch? I mean, I think there's all kinds of risks down there, and it would not surprise anybody if there was lost life and just doing the work to remove the bridge, just that. Yeah. And then finally, one thing I hadn't thought of before, there's another area of engineering involved here, and that's environmental engineering. This already has had a huge effect on the environment in that area. And removing the bridge and the torching and the steel that have to take out whatever method, that's going to have an effect on the environment, no? Well, let's hope that that environment, that whole peer-arbor area was not a life-source area. So, you know, remember how we had our super ferry and it was going to Bali and it was just filling the coral reef? And then that was another issue. If they had made those things double-layered, maybe the bottom wouldn't have torn off as easily, but that wasn't the case. So, they were constantly fixing that up. I think the same thing. I don't know what kind of environmental issues there may be, but removal of all this material, fixing the bridge so it can be reused. I think all our long-term issues that they're going to have to look at, does it make sense to put the bridge back knowing that maybe there was damage to the lower structures that they need to fully check out before something like this happened? Do they need to really, like you and I also discussed, change the protocol of how ships are going in and out of this place? I think a variety of questions come up and, yes, for engineers, we're always striving to get to the next level of better solution. That's why engineers are always in demand because until we get to the ultimate solution, the absolute solution, engineers are going to be constantly making little developments to get better and get better and get better. Unless somebody all of a sudden conjures up what that ultimate solution is, you're always going to need engineers to do stuff like this. Yeah, and to fix what breaks. We've had a couple of other bridges that have failed within the last few years. Trump said he was going to focus on infrastructure, but he didn't. Joe Biden said he was going to focus on infrastructure, and he did. But I think this is a lesson in infrastructure. And I was telling you the story of Spencer Abraham was the Secretary of Energy years ago. There was a big blackout in the Northeast, and they said to Secretary Abraham Abrams, whatever his name was. What happened here? How come the grid failed that way? And he reminded them the grid was out of the 50s or the 60s, and the grid was going to fail ultimately. They don't last forever. There are weaknesses and vulnerabilities and degradations involved. And you have to renew these things. And that's the point he made. So this isn't something that happens just one day. It happens over multiple administrations, multiple officials, and then you get bridges that fail. In this case, it was more than a bridge that failed. It was a system that failed. It was multiple. When they come out with this National Transportation Safety Board report, it's going to be blamed all around for a lot of people, a lot of systems, a lot of things. How could this happen in the United States of America, where we like to do planning and we like our infrastructure to be updated, as you say. But one thing I wanted to talk with you about, Song, is that this is a wake-up call. It's a wake-up call because it had implications for marine traffic, for major ports, for the design and maintenance of bridges, for the economy. If these ships can't get into Baltimore, if the trucks can't get over a bridge from one side to the other, it's a critical bridge. That has a huge effect on our economy. We can't move things. I'm reminded of, I think it was on the West Coast, there were ships that were stuck off LA or San Diego a few years ago, and it was a pipeline, or rather a supply line issue, where certain things coming into the United States by the West Coast were out there offshore. They couldn't unload. That kind of thing is going to happen here. I mean, it's already visible, and we know already that it is happening and will happen, and we haven't really paid enough attention to the infrastructure and the systems around transportation. What are your thoughts about a new dimension of planning, of call it infrastructure planning, engineering planning, transportation planning, transportation policy, and dealing with the politics that are always involved in huge projects. There was a cost to make a bridge like this, and when you spend that money, the politics find their way in. Of course, in dealing with the emerging problem of restoring, repairing infrastructure that is failing or broken like this, so query your thoughts about that from an engineering part of you. To me, this makes the science of engineering, structural engineering especially, all the more important, critically important to the country. Think about it. Structurally, we try to build buildings, build roads, build bridges so they can last not 10 years, 20 years, but 50 years or 100 years, but sometimes that doesn't work because of the environment and the conditions that it goes through. Maybe it's just too many cars going over the bridge compared to what we calculated, or building it to withstand something like the 707, but a 747 goes into it, or in this case, maybe a cargo ship that was only about two-thirds of the size, but now all of a sudden it was a huge 50% larger cargo ship. These things are absolute needs where, like you said, capital improvement planning and structural planning has to be in place. Obviously, there's no way we're going to know what's going to be like 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 100 years from now, but we have to do our due diligence and carefully plan out what are some of the worst case conditions that can happen. I know in some cases, for engineering, we tried to have safety factors built in, which is when we're on textbooks, it's supposed to be like a two-to-one thing, but we'll get closer to a one-to-one, 1.5-to-one type of stuff, but there are safety factors built into structure. The other thing is maybe what we need to do is utilize all these remote sensing capabilities that we are now capable of to place them into these roads, these bridges, these buildings, all these cars, everything, so we can constantly monitor these things, but you've got to always remember, all this monitoring also relies on one thing, and that's called power, electricity, and if we can't have that being consistent, we're going to be in another funk. I mean, I've got a good case for you about Hawaii. I think we have the highest percentage of residential solar power system in the state. The only problem is, if you think about when the power generators, the electricity power plants were built, 50s, 60s, 70s, they were built to be a one-way street. They generate power, and you and me as consumers, we use it and we pay for it. Now we're in a funk where we actually generate power, and we're trying to sell it back, but there is really no way for them to take it back because it's still a one-way line, and they're trying to make these infrastructural changes and modifications to take these into effect. If people say, oh yeah, but I got credit for power I generate, that just means you got credit. It's not going anywhere. If you have a battery system, you're using your own power, but you're not really selling it back yet because that's not 100% in place, but as soon as that happened, I think that is a testament as to how infrastructure, including building the bridges, roads, can also be modified to take into account all the future developments that might take place. It's going to be a guessing game. Well, you know what? I think it's going to affect the science of engineering. Oh, 100%. Yeah, this is the kind of thing where we'll be talking about it and thinking about it for years. The other couple of things I want to mention for your reaction is that if you want to do backup systems, backup power systems on large cargo ships like this, if you want to talk about reorganizing marine design, material science, bow thruster technology, what have you, that's not just an American issue. This ship was not flagged in the United States. This ship was not built in the United States, as most of the large cargo ships these days. It was built, rather flagged, built somewhere else and managed by owners and managers from somewhere else. So if you want to change those things about the container ships, you really have to do it on a global basis, and you have to get people far away to agree to new standards. This is another issue. They may not agree, and so the United States has a lot of control over that. They can say, you know, if that ship doesn't meet our specs, not coming in. But I think this is an international issue. And finally, I want to tell you about the deacon's chariot. 19th century poem. I can't remember who wrote it, but it's American literature. And the deacon decided he was sad to see his wagon was always breaking down. So he built a very special wagon, and it was called the deacon's chariot. And he built every part of it to last for 100 years, 100 years. And it worked fine, except on the 100th anniversary of the construction of the deacon's chariot. All the parts fell apart. They failed at the same moment. That's the story of the deacon's chariot. And I suggest to you that we have an infrastructure in this country we have not paid attention to. We have not thought ahead about. And one of these days, and we've seen already some of the failures that we've had to, you know, rush and hustle to fix, one of these days, that's going to increase. And we're going to have multiple bridges, multiple bridges falling apart, because we haven't really paid attention. And I don't know how we're going to deal with that, but it's going to accelerate. That's my view, just like the deacon's chariot, when they get to a certain age. Your thoughts on that point? Hey, Murphy's law happens, right? As I recall, Murphy's law is an engineering law, isn't it? Yes, it is. You know, it's actually odd. One of the things that engineers go by when they design is KISS keep it simple. And maybe too much complexity makes things too hard to monitor everything. Obviously, we have not been judicially following up on maintenance and repair of anything. You know, for you and me, our homes as well, unless we are constantly doing repairs to our homes, things will deteriorate. And to keep up with that, whether it's President Biden, President Trump, President Obama, anyone, they're going to have to understand that there are structures that are getting old. And you know, this is to kind of dampen out the pun. Even you and me, Jay, we're getting older, right? And because of that, we require a lot more thought in how we do things. And you just are not who you are when you were 20 years ago, right? So I think we need to get everyone to understand that there is going to have to be a very good balance between what it's going to cost, how much time it's going to take, and what you want the safety of a lot of these things to be. And I think that's just a lifelong project we're going to have to be looking at. And we're going to have to adhere to. Yeah. And the U.S. can be a leader in that. We can figure it out. We have to figure it out. Because we've always been. Yeah, we've always been. I don't know what happened. I think when you have competition, sometimes you do try to find a slightly quicker road. And maybe along those roads, things didn't quite get to that quality control that you were looking. So we need to do something. Yeah. And the one last point comes out of what you said. I'm familiar with the term value engineering. And that's, you know, in the vernacular, that's cutting corners. That's using materials that are really not adequate. It's designing, you know, without engineering, without engineering. Analysis. Yeah. Yeah. And we can't do that anymore. That's not possible. And the law has to follow that. It has to say, look, if you're going to build something, you better do it right. We don't want second best. We can't afford second best. The implications and effects are much too disastrous. Well, thank you so much, Sanchai. Great to have you on the show. I look forward to doing it again. And I think you should go back to your, I think you should go back to your meeting now and tell them we had a good discussion. I'll go and see if there are some students that can be the future solvers for all these problems that we have. Thank you, Sanchai. See you guys. See you, Jay. Aloha. 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