… you’d need some massive …
from the srticle :
… a sphere nine metres in diameter and weighing 400 tonnes will be submerged …
Can you calculate the weight of a sphere of 9 m of displaced water ?
No ? Well, it is 382 tons.
So, the concrete sphere is already massive by itself. “You” don’t need any complicated anchoring.
Same goes with the rest of your mechanical engineering intuitions : you did not work in this domain or study it, did you 😆 ?
Also, stress cycling is bad on most material, yes. But here it is compressive stress and the geometry is symmetric. Without further study, i want to believe this thing has good potential and my intuitions tells me it looks nice. Time will tell 😁 !
indeed i made a very simplified calculation not taking into account increase density of salted water nor increased density because of compressibility of water at 500 m deep. Basically i took 1m³(water) is 1 (metric) ton.
Thanks for the insight, I’m not a mechanical engineer, I’m a software engineer :) The walls on these spheres have got to be pretty thick- 400 tonnes is no joke. 3/4 of a meter if I had to guess.
Perfect guess ! (afaik)
ρ(concrete) ≈ 2.5 tons/m³
so full sphere ≈ (2.5 x 382) tons = 955 tons
they have 400 t so the cavity removes :
955 - 400 = 555 t … so 7.51m diam. cavity
… so, yes 3/4m thick wall 😌👍 !
Can you calculate the weight of a sphere of 9 m of displaced water ?
No ? Well, it is 382 tons.
So, the concrete sphere is already massive by itself. “You” don’t need any complicated anchoring.
Same goes with the rest of your mechanical engineering intuitions : you did not work in this domain or study it, did you 😆 ?
Also, stress cycling is bad on most material, yes. But here it is compressive stress and the geometry is symmetric. Without further study, i want to believe this thing has good potential and my intuitions tells me it looks nice. Time will tell 😁 !
Metric strikes again.
I bet you didn’t even have to convert through football fields, elephants, or olympic sized swimming pools!
indeed i made a very simplified calculation not taking into account increase density of salted water nor increased density because of compressibility of water at 500 m deep. Basically i took 1m³(water) is 1 (metric) ton.
Thanks for the insight, I’m not a mechanical engineer, I’m a software engineer :) The walls on these spheres have got to be pretty thick- 400 tonnes is no joke. 3/4 of a meter if I had to guess.
Perfect guess ! (afaik) ρ(concrete) ≈ 2.5 tons/m³
so full sphere ≈ (2.5 x 382) tons = 955 tons
they have 400 t so the cavity removes :
955 - 400 = 555 t … so 7.51m diam. cavity
… so, yes 3/4m thick wall 😌👍 !
That’s exactly the way I would have calculated it, glad someone beat me to it though. Thanks!