Jim200... 1. Biggus Diggus from the United Kingdom ...
1. Biggus Diggus from the United Kingdom
...
Is this in association with Monty Python's 'Biggus Dickus'?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Swissloop Tunneling came in second in Nevada only because it wasn’t able to tunnel as fast as TUM. From their remarks on Twitter, they are presently working on improving the digging head on their machine. This summer they will enter the European tunneling contest and in January 2023 in Austin, Texas, the Boring Company will hold its second contest.
They won the innovation and design award and in their link below they explain the various functions of their machine. The digging head employs a rock cutting part and water to carry away the debris. This does away with the dust associated with tunneling and which the U of Maryland had to use special switches. They use a lot of hydraulics for stearing the machine, non-stop pushing, and rotating the head. Here they had help from Hagenbuch Hydraulics in the design.
Probably the most impressive part of the design was the 3-D printing of a glass fiber and plastic tunnel tube. Their university has done 3-D printing projects in the past, but mostly with cement buildings. However, the news reports and YouTube videos don’t explain how they do the 3-D printing. It looks like they have a spool of fiberglass cloth under the first set of round rods and maybe another under the second set. Then there are rollers to hold the tube in place as it is curing. This is followed by the double hydraulic pusher which presses outward to grab the tube. You may think that the pusher should be in front of the 3-D printer. We will see what changes are made for the next competitions.
https://swisslooptunneling.ch/tbm/
https://www.wevolver.com/article/swissloop-tunneling
HerrenhnechtAG has a nice video of their tunnel boring machine with explanation of how it operates. They are from southern Germany and probably employ people who have gone to TUM. They made the 30 km high speed rail tunnel through the mountains north of Madrid, Spain using a bore diameter of 9.51 meters, 31.2 feet. They say that they can construct and operate tunnel boring machines up to 14 meters in diameter, 45.9 feet.
This tunnel boring machine is a little different in that it is a double shield type that can continue boring while erecting the segments of high strength concrete for lining the tunnel. It employs two gripper feet which push against the rock walls and absorb the thrust and torsional forces necessary for the rotating cutting head. However, when tunnel geology becomes unstable, they can’t use the gripper feet and have to stop boring while they insert the concrete sections. This slows down operations significantly.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ6lz4rcSFA
I went to google to find out some more about the digging machines, but most of the reporting was superficial and only covered that TUM Boring was the only one to dig the complete test tunnel and was one of the few that met the safety requirements.
TUM‘s design had a four horizontal tube revolving canister,which from a picture had large tubes the diameter of the tunnel with belt conveyors inside to carry the dug material. Apparently, the tunnel boring machine has to be stopped in order to shore up the tunnel, and this canister design allows the boring machine to continue digging. So far, I have not seen exactly how well their design works.
TUM submitted a 130 page report on their machine in order to be one of the twelve selected for the final competition. They were most concerned with Swissloop who had a computerized 3-D printing machine using fiberglass and a plastic to shore up the tunnel. However, TUM had a lot of help with their machine with many corporations supplying parts and advice. In the link below, Eaton tells how they helped to automate the control of the TUM boring machine.
https://www.eaton.com/nz/en-gb/markets/success-stories/TUM-boring-competition.html
The Boring Company has also been trying to improve the tunneling process by holding a “Not a Boring Competition”. It had 400 applications with stated goals of increasing tunneling speed and reducing cost. On September 12, 2021, twelve finalists were selected to meet in Los Vegas and show their improvements. The finalists were:
2. CU Hyperloop - U of Colorado, Boulder
3. Dirt Torpedo - DHBW Mosbach, Germany
4. Hyperloop UC - U of Cincinnati
5. MIT Hyperloop III - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
6. Paradigm Boring - U of Newfoundland, St Johns, Canada and Northeastern U, USA
7. Swissloop Tunneling - ETH Zurich, Switzerland
8. Team Badgermole - India and USA
9. The Diggeridoos - Virginia Tech
10. Warwick Boring Team - U of Warwick, United Kingdom
11. TUM Boring - Technical U of Munich, Germany
12. UMD Loop - U of Maryland
The winners were:
Safety - UMD Loop
Fastest Launch - The Diggeridoos
Innovation - Swissloop
Guidance - TUM Boring
Overall Winner - TUM Boring
You can see some pictures on the Boring Company website, but it is not clear what advances were made. Prufrock indicates some innovations.
https://www.boringcompany.com/
Here is an article on the Boring Company’s tunnel in Las Vegas and a look at the plan to connect the main casinos and airport. I haven’t been following what they are doing, so there could be other projects. I do know that the second round of new designs for boring machines, principally from universities, is now underway.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/06/10/elon-musk-s-47m-underground-tunnels-will-be-used-for-electric-cars
Musk consistently thinks outside the box. That seems to upset a lot of people, but that's how innovation happens.
Jim200 Musk has nothing to do with Virgin Hyperloop nor HyperloopTT in America, nor with the couple of companies in Europe, nor with the companies further afield in Korea and China, but he did inspire all of them by bringing all the world’s engineers together. Branson put some money into Hyperloop One with the stipulation that it become Virgin Hyperloop. Fermi was ahead of his time, for it is only recently that we have determined with certainty that there are many billions and billions of planets with at least some, (possibly a lot), suitable for life. For at least the past 4000 or more years, (except for the last 200), man has been moving at the speed of a horse or camel over the earth. To get to the nearest star, ( other than the sun), man has to travel in a straight line about 25,000,000,000,000 miles. Of course, we really are moving quite fast without knowing it. The earth is spinning on its’ axis at about 1000 mph at the equator. Every year the earth travels about 600,000,000 miles around the sun at a speed of about 66,000 mph. The sun needs about 225 million years to get around the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of about 483,000 mph. From cosmic background radiation and the Doppler shift, it has been calculated that the Milky Way galaxy is also moving at about 1,300,000 mph. So traveling in the Hyperloop at 670 mph should be tolerable.
Musk has nothing to do with Virgin Hyperloop nor HyperloopTT in America, nor with the couple of companies in Europe, nor with the companies further afield in Korea and China, but he did inspire all of them by bringing all the world’s engineers together. Branson put some money into Hyperloop One with the stipulation that it become Virgin Hyperloop.
Fermi was ahead of his time, for it is only recently that we have determined with certainty that there are many billions and billions of planets with at least some, (possibly a lot), suitable for life. For at least the past 4000 or more years, (except for the last 200), man has been moving at the speed of a horse or camel over the earth. To get to the nearest star, ( other than the sun), man has to travel in a straight line about 25,000,000,000,000 miles.
Of course, we really are moving quite fast without knowing it. The earth is spinning on its’ axis at about 1000 mph at the equator. Every year the earth travels about 600,000,000 miles around the sun at a speed of about 66,000 mph. The sun needs about 225 million years to get around the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of about 483,000 mph. From cosmic background radiation and the Doppler shift, it has been calculated that the Milky Way galaxy is also moving at about 1,300,000 mph. So traveling in the Hyperloop at 670 mph should be tolerable.
Stop the world, I want to get off.
Jim200... Of course, we really are moving quite fast without knowing it. The earth is spinning on its’ axis at about 1000 mph at the equator. Every year the earth travels about 600,000,000 miles around the sun at a speed of about 66,000 mph. The sun needs about 225 million years to get around the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of about 483,000 mph. From cosmic background radiation and the Doppler shift, it has been calculated that the Milky Way galaxy is also moving at about 1,300,000 mph. So traveling in the Hyperloop at 670 mph should be tolerable.
It's not the speed - its the sudden stops that kill.
CMStPnPHis philosophy on intelligent life in the galaxy: It does not exist, otherwise he or someone else would have seen it before now. I find that statement to sound overly common sense but also at the same time overly dismissive of the various theories some of them viable as to why that has not yet happened.
He's only repeating the insight of a much more brilliant mind, Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi, dating to 1950. It's called "The Fermi Paradox" and goes like this. The universe is much older than the sun (now estimated at 13 billion versus 4.5 billion years) which we know, because of its spectrographic composition (ratio of heavy to light elements), is a second generation star. Therefore there must have been much older first generation stars and, by implication, solar systems, some of which should have evolved intelligent, spacefaring life. Given the time spans involved, allowing for, say, one mission to another star every thousand years from about 5 billion years after the Big Bang onwards, then leap frogging outwards every thousand years from that system, repeated every thousand years endlessly and considering we 're talking about evolution being universal, creating multiple species and points of origin, the galaxy should be teeming with life and even if a particular race has died out, evidence of its existance should be obvious and all around us. So Fermi famously asked, "Where is everybody?"
To which his friend and colleague Leo Szilard replied, "They are here. We call them Hungarians"
Szilard was, himself, Hungarian, so he ought to have known.
My friends in the UK call him the bearded twat. Over there it means a fool and does not refer to anything sexual.
York1 blue streak 1 Does this mean MUSK is giving up? 4-1/2 days got to be some kind of record? Virgin Hyperloop lays off 111 staffers as it abandons plans for passenger transport (msn.com) Does Musk have any part of this company? I thought at one time he talked about this system, but that he got out of it to work on his rocket and Tesla. I admit I don't know that much about Musk, so my memory may be completely wrong.
blue streak 1 Does this mean MUSK is giving up? 4-1/2 days got to be some kind of record? Virgin Hyperloop lays off 111 staffers as it abandons plans for passenger transport (msn.com)
Virgin Hyperloop lays off 111 staffers as it abandons plans for passenger transport (msn.com)
Does Musk have any part of this company? I thought at one time he talked about this system, but that he got out of it to work on his rocket and Tesla.
I admit I don't know that much about Musk, so my memory may be completely wrong.
I believe anything with 'Virgin' attached to its name is a outgrowth of the Sir Richard Branson business empire.
Always thought there was something fishy about this proposal.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPuQ39iGkAY
blue streak 1Does this mean MUSK is giving up? 4-1/2 days got to be some kind of record? Virgin Hyperloop lays off 111 staffers as it abandons plans for passenger transport (msn.com)
York1 John
Does this mean MUSK is giving up? 4-1/2 days got to be some kind of record?
BaltACD Most of the Astrophysical videos I come across on YouTube tend to say that Einstien's theories are being proven correct. Of course, we only know what we know and we have yet to find out all the things we don't know. We will never know all that we don't know as everything you learn creates 10 more questions about what you don't know.
Most of the Astrophysical videos I come across on YouTube tend to say that Einstien's theories are being proven correct. Of course, we only know what we know and we have yet to find out all the things we don't know. We will never know all that we don't know as everything you learn creates 10 more questions about what you don't know.
One of the more recently proven predictions, gravity waves travel at the speed of light, was the near simultaneous detection of gamma rays and gravity waves from neutron star or black hole merger. IIRC, the detections were about 2 seconds apart and the merger took place more than 100 million years ago. Another prediction, "frame dragging", was proved in he last 15 years.
In order to get things moving really fast, you need to come up with same way of making the exhaust move really fast, maybe using lasers to heat hydrogen to say 30,000K might do the trick. At that temp, the atoms would be moving at 22,000m/s.
What SpaceX has done is to take a hit in performance to really drive down costs.
Channeling Donald Rumsfeld?
CMStPnPWas Einstien correct with all his gravitational theories or do some need revisement?
Erik_MagI think Musk's ability is more on finding/choosing/inspiring the right people than the nitty gritty of innovation. His employees have figured out how to dramatically reduce the cost of getting stuff into space, by emphasizing cost over performance. He also is in favor of a build something rapidly, see where it breaks, re-design, build and repeat. The "Starship" reminds me of Truax's Sea Dragon proposal from the early 60's, though the Sea Dragon had one HUGE engine.
Space program is in serious need of genious which seems to be missing entirely. Very disappointed with their proposed interstellar ship which just looks like a larger sized Apollo 11, still rocket powered. No new power plant? No research into gravity manipulation? Anti-matter power? Where is all the money being spent on research going? Was Einstien correct with all his gravitational theories or do some need revisement?
Meet the Bridge to Nowhere
An interesting and worthwhile read/listen...
https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X
Where he impressed me was when he started returning booster rockets to their launch sites and landing them upright. And I think he was ahead of the curve in pushing power grid load battery plants. If wind and solar are going to be our salvation, they are essential. Otherwise he is one great huckster.
CMStPnP Flintlock76 "wayward genius," Way to much credit being given there. He is no more a genius than Bill Gates. I would refer to him as an innovator that can spot uses for existing technology that other people do not see. As far as inventing anything? Have not seen any breakthroughs from Elon Musk or Bill Gates yet.
Flintlock76 "wayward genius,"
Way to much credit being given there. He is no more a genius than Bill Gates. I would refer to him as an innovator that can spot uses for existing technology that other people do not see. As far as inventing anything? Have not seen any breakthroughs from Elon Musk or Bill Gates yet.
Wait and see.
I think Musk's ability is more on finding/choosing/inspiring the right people than the nitty gritty of innovation. His employees have figured out how to dramatically reduce the cost of getting stuff into space, by emphasizing cost over performance. He also is in favor of a build something rapidly, see where it breaks, re-design, build and repeat. The "Starship" reminds me of Truax's Sea Dragon proposal from the early 60's, though the Sea Dragon had one HUGE engine.
Tesla's (the car company) big technical innovations were in reducing the size, cost and weight of the electric propulsion system and battery packs. (Using EV components, the BOM for re-motoring a PCC car might be $50k...) Tesla's major failing was being overly on autonomous driving, with several fatalities on record.
Musk comes across more like Steve Jobs than Bill Gates.
Flintlock76"wayward genius,"
charlie hebdo1. Musk is no fool.
Perhaps close minded and overly confident is a better description.
His philosophy on intelligent life in the galaxy: It does not exist, otherwise he or someone else would have seen it before now. I find that statement to sound overly common sense but also at the same time overly dismissive of the various theories some of them viable as to why that has not yet happened.
Refuses to discuss unproven but hypothetical theories.
Most of his "futuristic" designs and innovations are for the most part recycle from the past including his tube transport system.
Lets also not forget the exaggerations he made publicly that nearly got him in trouble with the SEC.
charlie hebdo. 2. It appears that Miami people don't see all the obstacles the out-of-the-area experts on here do. I wonder why?
Meet the Bridge to Nowhere (one example of many in the United States).
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=APq-WBt85cV6h1ePpHC19f4XATeHvosfSw:1645294588284&q=How+hard+is+the+hike+to+the+Bridge+to+Nowhere?&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&vet=1&fir=shStukWXcfIqyM%252CfODd-Djh8YhpcM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kQG7roPBf5rsmQnG1u_9vAfpUpKJA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRjuP7r4z2AhXpct8KHVPQBb8Q9QF6BAgKEAE&biw=1536&bih=714&dpr=1.25#imgrc=shStukWXcfIqyM
charlie hebdo Musk is no fool.
I see him as more of what used to be called a "wayward genius," but for the time being he should be paying more attention to the serious quality-control issues with his car line than any other projects.
Look, in a world that is full of the burgeoning NFT revolution, where investment bankers pony up a $50M tranche for people making containers into structural elements of autonomous railcars... this idea is genius! Just like a century ago, when the first Florida boom to increase real-estate value by separating the marks from the moolah was on. What's a little submerged-at-high-tide or potential companion-reptile training in our can-do go-go '20s?
I was going to be sarcastic and say 'he could always do what we do in the Panhandle and raise his tunnels up on stilts' until I remembered the rest of the Hyperloop hype...
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