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by nayuki
644 days ago
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Structures like bridges are a complicated case because you can't describe its load capacity as a mass or a weight (force). I'll assume that a bridge fails when the downward force on its deck exceeds a certain constant number. But that force is inclusive of the dead weight of the bridge. Let's say a bridge has a mass of 1000 kg and it can hold up an additional 1000 kg of vehicles on Earth. That means it can hold up about 20 000 N of weight (assuming that g = 10 m/s^2). The Moon's surface gravity is 1/6th of the Earth's. 20 000 N of weight would be 12 000 kg of mass on the moon. Subtract the bridge's mass of 1000 kg, and you can put 11 000 of vehicles on the bridge - which is substantially more than 6× the mass of vehicles allowed on Earth. |
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