World's largest tunnel boring machine finishes drilling under Niagara Falls...

http://www.610cktb.com/news/national/Article.aspx?id=281702



Note: "Niagara Falls" in the subject line referst to the town of Niagara Falls, Ontario, not to the actual Falls. The tunnel will redirect some water from upriver of the falls, under the town to Sir Adam Beck Generating Station.

Ontario Power Generating's Info page here, with a project video and other stuff:
http://www.opg.com/power/hydro/new_projects/ntp/index.asp

Posted for those interested in big engineering projects :hi:

Sid

delete, thanks. posted reply in wrong place.

I found it fascinating that when they built the Chunnel, they couldn't get two of them out so they basically drove them off to the north and south of the Chunnel and left them there, sealing them in place. Several million years from now some Archeologist will come across those machines!

should know better. Especially in this day and age.

One of the first ways of generating electricity, short of flying kites in a thunderstorm, hydro, is one clean, renewable energy we can use instead of nukes.

did the job

as it is a big turntable with multiple bits on it. I'd like to know the diameter of the bore, since they told me everything but that. The bore is at least as important as the fact that it will be used for hydro-electric power generation :)

Edit: here's the breakthrough. Little people in front of Big Betty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZdoBPNOU_U&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdFN2tIXMh8&feature=related

Sid

14.4 meters! :wow:

I'll have to watch the links later as I'm at work (the engineers have complained about us streaming the bandwidth away :P)

Thanks for the info! :hi:

Rick Mercer is a Canadian comedian who does a weekly "Daily Show" type fake news program. Here's his report on Big Becky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1tT7upP6JE&feature=related

:hi:

Sid

links. They bored one side then the other. The calibration to have the two sides meet up perfectly is another phenomenal feat. I wonder how far back out of the tunnel the drill links ran? I guess they moved the engines that powered the rig down as the tunnel progressed. Drilling for oil where you have gravity on your side is easier in terms of tensile strength. The tensile strength of the rig is huge.

Or "Channel Tunnel" :)

From the article:



Compare to the Mighty Mississippi at Memphis these days. Let's see:

1 meter = 39.37 inches or 3.28 feet, so (a few calculations later), 1 cubic meter is 35.31 cubic feet. Thus I agree that 500 cubic meters is 17,657 cubic feet, give or take. The cross-sectional area of the tunnel is 47.3 feet divided by two, then square that and multiply by pi. You get 1,757 square feet. Divide that into the quantity of water to get its speed, which is 17,657 cubic feet divided by 1,757 square feet, or 10 feet per second. If 88 fps is 60 mph, then 10 feet per second is 6.85 mph.

Go down to Memphis. Water flow in the Mississippi a few days back was 2 million cubic feet per second, and I'll bet that it was moving at 6.85 mph at least.

;-)