An Engineer's Story Problem

This article was posted 08/03/2006 and is most likely outdated.

Topic - Unusual and Special Issues
Subject - An Engineer's Story Problem

August 3, 2006

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An Engineer's Story Problem

A Backhoe weighing 8 tons is on top of a flatbed 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, reinforced with 1 ½ 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 the driver...)

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...

Demonstrative Solution: (Doesn't look as though he could get up enough speed to make it all the way...)

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Comments

The fastening of this backhoe to the trailer must have been done by the maintenance manager over at the American Seaway Foods division of Giant Eagle over in Bedford Heights, Ohio.

This past Tuesday he told me that I was "too smart" read ( snotty voice ) Too Expensive for his company. One of the complaints that I made to the Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board's assistant Attorny General is that nobody is making industrial electricians get licenses and nobody is making factories hire journeymen through licensed electrical ontractors.

Since 1979 the emphasis has been on hiring the dumbest people that can be found on the basis that dumb is cheaper.

Michael R.Cole

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