{"id":150451,"date":"2024-03-28T11:19:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T15:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=150451"},"modified":"2024-03-28T11:22:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T15:22:09","slug":"bridge-collapse-creates-conversation-in-bu-structural-mechanics-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2024\/03\/28\/bridge-collapse-creates-conversation-in-bu-structural-mechanics-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridge Collapse Creates Conversation in BU Structural Mechanics Class"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you teach a college course that\u2019s a mechanical engineering advanced elective called ME309-Structural Mechanics, the shocking collapse of a 47-year-old bridge makes for some pretty interesting classroom discussion.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/eng\/files\/2017\/12\/dpholmes2016-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Douglas Holmes\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-64946 size-thumbnail\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/files\/2017\/12\/dpholmes2016-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/files\/2017\/12\/dpholmes2016-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/files\/2017\/12\/dpholmes2016-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/files\/2017\/12\/dpholmes2016-550x550.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/files\/2017\/12\/dpholmes2016-710x710.jpg 710w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/files\/2017\/12\/dpholmes2016-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>That was the case this week for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/profile\/douglas-p-holmes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Douglas Holmes<\/a>, a College of Engineering associate professor of mechanics and mechanical engineering, who also leads ENG\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/moss\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mechanics of Slender Structures lab<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The incredible footage of a cargo ship in Baltimore striking a support of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday, causing the bridge to collapse in seconds like a house of cards, is what Holmes began his classroom discussion with later that day. He showed the students the video and then turned it into a conversation and a lesson around structural mechanics, engineering, and why a steel structure designed to support hundreds of thousands of vehicles every day would collapse so easily.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>Read the full story at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2024\/bridge-collapse-creates-conversation-in-bu-class\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BU Today<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you teach a college course that\u2019s a mechanical engineering advanced elective called ME309-Structural Mechanics, the shocking collapse of a 47-year-old bridge makes for some pretty interesting classroom discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21681,"featured_media":150457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,1193,908],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150451"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21681"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150451"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150464,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150451\/revisions\/150464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}