For The Engineers Out There

PLEASE RESOLVE THIS BEFORE LOOKING AT THE ANSWER BELOW

Conditions:

A backhoe weighing 22 tons is on top of a lowboy trailer and heading east on Interstate 70 near Hays, Kansas .
The extended shovel arm is made of hardened refined steel and the approaching overpass is made of commercial-grade concrete, re inforced with 1 1/2 inch steel rebar spaced at 6 inch intervals in a criss-cross pattern layered at 1 foot vertical spacing.

Solve:

When the shovel arm hits the overpass, how fast do you have to be going to slice the bridge in half ?
(Assume no effect for headwind and no braking by thedriver...)

Extra Credit:

Solve for the time and distance required for the entire rig to come to a complete stop after hitting the overpass at the speed calculated above.
Yes, you can neglect friction.

I couldn't solve it either......but who cares;
The pictures are great! The driver was on his mobile 'phone..................

merci Alec

Comments

Anonymous said…

Amazing photo. Either they make these machines tougher than hell...or the bridge was made of styrofoam. Count Sneaky

16 March 2009 at 21:13

Anonymous said…

I have rethought the engineering involved and decided it was a case of DUUI(Driving Under Undescended Intellect). I hope this clears up any remaining technical questions. Count Sneaky

17 March 2009 at 16:15

nonamedufus said…

Count: You've heard of DUI? This is DIU: Driving Into Underpass

18 March 2009 at 09:27

Anonymous said…

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

23 January 2010 at 09:20

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