Okay physics guys - if we want to calculate the force the thing hit with is it mass (which would be gigantic) times deceleration?
According to my engineering student daughter deceleration is NOT A WORD!@;#;#
She's right but it doesn't seem right to say the ship didn't hit with any force since it wasn't accelerating.
What we could call deacceleration or negative acceleration is the result of an opposite force placed on an object in motion. In this case, the pillar's resistance to movement was a force that could be used to calculate the force the tanker had. I'd guess the best way to calculate it would be the resistance force of the pier/pillar added to the mass of the tanker x velocity with which it was moved when it finally broke apart. In other words, it was slowed down by the pillar which could be a known number and then add that to the "exit" velocity force in a sense.
This is a nigh impossible calculation.
Probably easiest way to get the force would be to calculate the amount of force needed to be applied to get the boat moving from zero to the speed it was when it contacted the bridge pillar. That's simpler than worrying about the forces involved in the negative acceleration immediately following impact which would have a myriad of forces involved.
Physics