Need help with a physics calulation

[MacGyver1968]

Assuming you have an object that weighs 80,000 kg, traveling at 223 meters per second...the kinetic energy of this object would be somewhere around 2 billion joules. right?

If the striking surface area of the object was 500 square feet....what would be the psi or SI equivalent?

Edit: the reason this is in pseudoscience is because it's a 9/11 question. I'm trying to determine the total PSI that the wings and fuselage of a 767 would impart on the perimeter columns.

 

[James R]

The energy doesn't help much here.

The object has a momentum of p = mv = 80,000 times 223 kg m/s.

The average force on the surface is:

F = p/t

where t is the time taken for the collision (roughly how long it took the 767 to come to rest from a speed of 223 metres per second).

The pressure across the whole surface is:

pressure = F/A

where A is the total cross-sectional collision area (i.e. total cross-sectional area of the columns that impacted the plane, or roughly the cross-sectional area of the fuselage + wings as seen from the front).

A bit more calculation can give you a ball-park estimate of the various numbers.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Thanks James.

 

[adoucette]

Assuming you have an object that weighs 80,000 kg, traveling at 223 meters per second...the kinetic energy of this object would be somewhere around 2 billion joules. right?

If the striking surface area of the object was 500 square feet....what would be the psi or SI equivalent?

Edit: the reason this is in pseudoscience is because it's a 9/11 question. I'm trying to determine the total PSI that the wings and fuselage of a 767 would impart on the perimeter columns.

Can't do it that way.
Both the plane and the towers are too complex of a set of structures.

See NIST NCSTAR1 Report 2 which goes into detail on the modeling of both the towers and the aircraft to determine the damage done by each plane to the respective towers.

http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/NCSTAR1-2index.htm

 

[AlexG]

I'm trying to determine the total PSI that the wings and fuselage of a 767 would impart on the perimeter columns.

Can't do it that way. The wings and fuselage aren't solid bodies. They crumple and shred, and so don't transfer all their energy.

 

[MacGyver1968]

I was just trying to get a ballpark figure....it really doesn't matter. I just found out the guy I was discussing this with is a "no planer", which renders him immune to math and physics.