The Baltimore Bridge Collapse: Understanding Water Currents and a Disaster’s Aftermath
While the simulators don’t explain the whole event, like why the Dali lost power in the first place, the models do explain how the local currents contributed to the ship’s drift toward the bridge. “The currents were stronger on the ship’s port side, and they caused it to turn southward and allide with the bridge pier,” Dietrich said.
The research team investigated a number of factors that could have influenced the Dali allision, such as channel depth, current speed and sea level rise. The researchers discovered that the ship’s drift motion was highly sensitive to uncertainties related to both the ship itself and its environment. In fact, they found that if the Dali had lost power just one minute later, the ship would have been much more likely to drift under the bridge unscathed.