Hi everyone, the population of the earth is growing, and there is less and less free space for housing. It is quite possible of floating in cities and underwater. Megacities may become quite real in the future. But how will you be able to solve the problem of building on water? After all its is much more difficult than building something on land.
Believe me, even now, mankind can build facilities of incredible scale in rivers, seas, and oceans. If you have any doubts about that, our article for today will clear them. Let's get it on.
COFFERDAM
Do you remember your last visit to the dentist, your doctor probably used a very strange tool. The aching tooth remains outside, and the rest of the oral cavity is covered with the latex sheet.
"What does underwater construction have to do with that?", you may ask. It's simple. This thing is called a Cofferdam, and Engineers have figured out to use it to build the most complex structures. Imagine you need to build a bridge across the sea straight, how do you lay the foundation if there's only water around? Put on diving suits and all the work in them? Not the brightest idea.
This is where the "Dentist tools" come in. Of course, the scale of the Cofferdam is different.
First, piles are driven into the bottom of the reservoir, and then, they are covered with a waterproof frame.
It's usually made of steel and concrete, but the modern designs are inflatable.
After the desired area is isolated, water is pumped out of it using powerful pumps. And here you go! now you have a completely dry and safe box, where you can work just as well as on land. The only downside of Cofferdam is that they are very expensive and you can't use them multiple times. After the construction is completed, they are flooded.
BRIDGE IN THE USA
While we're talking about the cost of building a bridge, let's look at this process in all of its details.
Well, the bridge you're about to see is not quite ordinary. At the beginning of the 21st century, the US authorities faced a problem —Old still water bridge, which connected the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin was in a very bad state. However, to start building, a new bridge across the Saint Croix River, builders had to consider many historical-cultural, and environmental peculiarities of the region. The reservoir is under state protection. The coastal area is inhabited by endangered species. And activists control every step. What could you do?
The project changed several times over roughly 20years. But by 2014, the Minnesota Department of transportation had found the perfect solution — a special innovation design was chosen to minimize the impact on the environment. It reduced the number of supports. You can see the result.
The same Kroy crossing bridge is one and a half kilometers long and more than meters tall, though it only has five supports in the water. Does this affect its strength? Not at all.
A four-lane bridge easily withstands both ice and summer heat but the innovative technology was pricey. The Saint Croix crossing cost 700 million dollars ($700m) to build.
WIND FARM AT SEA
Did you find the precious project not challenging enough?
Well, let's see how a truly magnificent structure was built near Borkham Island.
In 2016, Germany decided to use one of the greenest energy sources to its advantage. They went and set up a massive wind farm right in the turbulent waters of the North sea. Why not? —the conditions for the power plant were perfect. There was regular strong wind all the time. So the only thing left to do was to manufacture, transport, and install parts of colossal dimensions.
Just so, you understand the farm consists of 67 turbines with a 154-meter rotor which produces a total power of 402megawatts in 1megawatt, and the light bulbs in your house consumed about 100watts. Let's put it simply, this is enough to provide 400,000 homes with electricity. The hardest part was creating a foundation for the mills. To protect it from the destructive power of the sea, special pokes were designed. These are the giant pipes that you now see on the screen.
Each pipe is 85 meters Song. About 8 meters in diameter, and weighs more than 1,300 tons. Even more surprising is that the construction of the Evangel mates took inky 23month (1year and 11 months). Seems like mankind can truly do anytime.
PIER RESTORATION
What is more difficult to build a huge object in the water doom the scratch or to renovate an existing one. Don't rush to answer until you look at the refurbishment of a 580 meters pier in Melbourne.
Princess Pierre has an immense cultural significance in Australia. It served as a departure point for Australian troops during the first and the second wars. And was the handling site for thousands of postwar migrants.
However, this historical structure gradually deteriorated. The piles rotted, and the deck collapsed in many places
Thurs only makes things harder for the development —Victoria company.
The pier simply couldn't withstand the heavy equipment required to carry out the work. But modern problems require modern solutions.
So two 300-tons jack-up barges, 120-ton crawler cranes, and professional divers were involved in the reconstruction of the facility. The latter had to disassemble the wooden elements dealt with the concrete base. The famous gatehouse was also restored even without dismantling it. The hydraulic yearly lifted it entirely 4years and $34m. Later, the project was completed and the pier reopened to the public. Be sure to check it out if you visit Australia one day.
CONSTRUCTION OF A BREAKWATER
Everything is clear with bridges Piers and power plants, but what is this weird structure? It looks like a giant snake tail assembled from Lego pieces. But it's not built just for fun, right?
To find out its purpose, we'll travel to Haifa, the largest of the three international ports in Israel. It's also known as one of the largest ports in the Eastern Mediterranean in terms of freight traffic. It handles over 29 million tons of cargo annually.
Naturally, such an important object requires serious protection primarily from the unpredictable forces of nature. the snake tail we saw is a huge Pier, stretching several kilometers into the sea, and protecting Haifa from the waves. It was built in several stages.
First, layer by layer an earth mound was created. Can you imagine the amount of Earth that looks like?
Then the embankment was strengthened with a reinforced concrete foundation and only then, these funny-looking concrete blocks are put in place. They are designed to break the waves. By the way, how do they dismantle the crane after the project is completed? We hope that they thought this through.
FLOOD PROTECTION
Every one of us built sand pebble dams on the beach. These guys are doing the same thing but on a slightly larger scale. You are now observing the construction of a flood protection system on a hailing Island in the UK.
The coastal line began to collapse, and 1,800 houses could have been flooded. The Eastern Solent costal partnership has partnered with the environment agency, and Raymond Brown construction to save the local property.
The first stage of construction was the most difficult. The constant tides constantly interfered with the construction works, though putting the stones in place and flattening the sand might seem relatively easy. The heavy equipment worked on the beach for 6months. Over this time, about 70 000 tons of rocks imported from Norway turned into a protective wall, 650 meters long.
In addition, 25,000 tons of pebbles were scattered to hold rising sea levels and improve the beach area.
The project costs about 6.5m. And it will protect the inhabitants of the Island for a least a 100years. Sounds like quite a complicated endeavor, right?
OFFSHORE OIL PLATFORM
Finally, we will find out the answer to the question that has long bothered us — "How do these huge oil rigs short appeared in the seas?"
Well, let's travel to the Gulf of Mexico to see how Shell's largest floating oil platform was built.
Hundreds of Engineers worked on the design of a gigantic platform called the "Apomotox" over 4years. It's not just the size, though it is impressive, the platform is 29stories high —two football fields wide and weighs more than an aircraft carrier.
The structure also had to be extremely durable. The creators wanted it to last 40 years, twice as long as any other platform. The task is extremely challenging, considering that the Apomotox is located in an area with really bad weather conditions, and some of its parts will be submerged to a depth of almost 2.5 kilometers.
The team had to give the project a lot of thought. What kind of pile pipe insulation could withstand 40years of exposure to saltwater and temperature extremes?
The builders had to ask Chemists for help and then, the construction began. It took 2years to build four gigantic that form the platform. Each module weighs more than 10,000 tons, and it was necessary not to raise them to a height of 18 meters, but also to set them with the precision of up to 1cm. As you may have guessed, the builders were up to the challenge. But you must admit, it's still quite hard to believe.
