Hoover Dam Bridge
Last week, I saw a extreme construction project called the Hoover Dam Bridge.
At both ends of the new bridge in the walls of the canyon were massive amounts of
concrete footings to mount the base of massive arches. They called each of these constructs "Million Dollar pours. During a one night period the block had to be poured into reinforced steel before the daylight so the desert heat could ruin the "pour". The concrete would be delivered by a continious stream of cement trucks and pumped down the wall 300 feet through 8 inch pipe. Twice the announcer said the amount of concrete poured in this one night was a cubic mile.
Could this be possible? One cubic mile of concrete? In one night?
At both ends of the new bridge in the walls of the canyon were massive amounts of
concrete footings to mount the base of massive arches. They called each of these constructs "Million Dollar pours. During a one night period the block had to be poured into reinforced steel before the daylight so the desert heat could ruin the "pour". The concrete would be delivered by a continious stream of cement trucks and pumped down the wall 300 feet through 8 inch pipe. Twice the announcer said the amount of concrete poured in this one night was a cubic mile.
Could this be possible? One cubic mile of concrete? In one night?
Labels: thinktank
posted by Ragknot at
10:19 PM
12 Comments:
A cubic mile through a single 8 inch pipe? I think not.
I think the question says just one pipe, and 8 inches is the diameter, not the radius.
Then the cross section area of pipe = 50 square inches approximately. A mile = 63,360 inches, so a square mile would be about 4 billion square inches.
So, a cubic mile transformed into a circular column of 50 square inches cross section would be about 80 million miles high.
To pump all this concrete through in 8 hours would require it to travel through the pipe at a million miles per hour.
As I said before, I think not.
Anom is right, it would be impossible. But they didn't say a cubic mile, they said 2000 cubic meters. Which would be a cube around 38 feet on a side.
I recorded the program and listened to it over and over on the Discovery program or maybe the history channel. Twice they clearly said a cubic mile --- which I knew was unreasonable and impossible.
2000 cubic meters is resonable, what program did you hear it on?
Now let us all listen to the TV. If they said it is so it must be. The TV never lies to us.
TVs do lie what are you talking about and oh the answer is it is impossible unless the radius was really big
i think it would be impossibe all said
Extreme Engineering on Youtube.
1mile=528ft=>1mile^3=14719795200ft^3
Surface area of a circle=2pir^2=>(2)(3.141592654)(4in)^2=100.531in^2 (this is the cross sectional area of the pipe with a diameter of 8in)
so
147197952000ft^3 144in^2 mile
----------------X -------X ------
100.531in^2 ft^2 5280ft
1
X-----=3327727.713mph
12hr
If you followed that assuming that cement was being poured over a 12hr period that is the speed it would have to travel through the pipes to equal 1mile^3. Now I'm not sure about you but there is no way I believe that figure because nothing man made can move that fast let alone cement in a pipe.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
i agree it's impossible just assuming from your calculations, but something could move that fast a magnetic superfluid (a fluid with no friction) although this wouldn't help them with their bridge.
You guys ever think that maybe the narrator maybe just had a mis-print on his script and just read what he was supposed to? Clearly the creators of the documentary took into thought that people watching the program will be so distracted by the massive structure in its own that this small mess up would just be surpassed as nothing at all. Obviously you guys did do your homework though and disproved it. Well done!
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home