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Originally Posted by zippyt
this is VERRRRRY COOL !!!!
Just imagen how much weight is on those pileings !!!!!
( ok math geeks , this is your moment to shine !!!)
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Not enough data from the story, but it shouldn't be much more than maybe 5 or so times that for a comparable highway bridge (it's effectively just a thick layer of water on top of a highway...), which looks about right from the size of the supports.
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Oh and I wounder if said weight goes up as a barge passes over said pileing ??? or if it is evenly distributed and displaced by the boyency of said barge ???
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Not really. If you could just drop a barge in the middle, there would be a local spike in the weight until the displacement was spread out (which would be very rapid) -- the water level over the whole bridge would rise a tiny bit and each support would share the load.
Since the barges are introduced via locks, the water level in the lock is matched to that of the bridge, and each barge displaces its weight in water, so there is no net increase in weight. This would be the same as if you could drop it in and then remove water until it was back at the original level, returning it to the original weight.
As long as the water level is maintained and there are only floating objects, the weight remains the same.