Very OT: Norwegians to build Ship Tunnel
Norway is going to build a shipping lane by tunneling under a mountain.
Completely off topic, but since this board is full of engineery-types and their fans, I thought it might be of some interest. Also to provide a light break in the ongoing manhunt coverage.
Ship canals have long been used to make journeys more direct and safer but the Stad peninsula is a mountainous divide, peaking at 645m, between the Norwegian Sea to the north and the North Sea to the south.
...
Instead of carving out a slice of the landscape for a canal, engineers will drill and blast through the rock at sea level before removing the dams so the sea can flood a 12m (39ft) deep channel for ships to travel in.
Eh, I think it's pretty cool. Plus, it's probably not something I would have heard about otherwise and it's OT season.
No football, no basketball, no hockey, early season baseball. So, I ask you, what the hell are we SUPPOSED to talk about?
Apparently not Norwegian shipping tunnels involving mountain excavation.
It is like you made this post, unwittingly, about your own post. Maybe not the worst ever but, judging from the reception, still fairly bad.
http://mgoblog.com/comment/reply/78118/2021564
And it makes me think of all sorts of other oddly matched things, like train canals and car landing strips and airplane tracks....
I can't tell if this guy is fucking around or not.
[Edit: He is only one guy.]
You must have missed the dog's infected ass-blisters or whatever they were.
I think the one about a dog's anal glands was worse.
I seriously broached this topic at dinner a few nights ago when our dog emitted a funky smell.
My spouse: "Where did you get this information"
Me: "MGoBlog, I think"
Lighten up, Francis. Or is your name Troll? Either way, stop being an asshole.
No, no, didn't you see his disclaimer? "Guaranteed to offend." You are all just waaaayy too sensitive, you overly PC pansies. Dude is clearly a badass, and you just can't handle how real he keeps it.
You should be tarred and feathered for that comment.
It appears to have spurred a robust discussion that is well over my head*, your own comment notwithstanding
*(aquatic pun very much intended)
take a chill pill and ease of the throttle.
anal glands.
BOOM
edit: Hmm. Apparently I'm very late to this party.
I think it's damn great.
The displacement limit seems artificially low based on the dimensions of the tunnel itself. Certainly the overhead clearance, beam, and draft numbers cited would afford passage to a larger ship, but there's no mention of curvature that would affect ship length, or not.
I can only think of factors such as navigation outside of the tunnel itself that would limit a ship of greater than 16,000 tonnes.
Is it possible that the addition of a ship and the displaced water inside the tunnel could cause air pressure fluctuations that would be dangerous if too high?
I have no experience in these types of considerations, but certainly this is solvable problem with high-speed rail where clearances are much tighter.
being open. Maybe if the ship went through there incredibly fast it might cause a problem. But they probably have an extremely slow speed limit (less than 10 knots).
I realize displacement and draft aren't exactly correlated, but they're somewhat related. An Arleigh-Burke destroyer is roughly half that displacement (about 8,000 tons, highly dependent on fuel load) and draws about 32-ish feet. No sane ship captain with that big a ship will go where they only have seven feet between hull and bottom, and then you have to consider tides, too. Personally I'm actually surprised the tunnel could fit a 16,000 ton ship. I'm sure they're thinking mostly flat-bottomed ships, but still.
relatively narrow beams, and a lot of equipment both above and below the waterline - thus the 32 foot draft. This canal will probably be used largely for passenger ferries, barge-type craft, and the smaller coastal freighters common in Europe. So, the depth they're building it for is probably pretty safe.
I don't know what a Burke destroyer is but anything that can destroy Burke must be incredibly powerful.
April 19th, 2013 at 11:00 PM ^
As a Naval Architect I can say that the dimensions indicate it's meant for not the largest ocean-going ships. 148 feet high and 115 ft. wide would definitely not accomodate most cruise ships and large tankers for example. Also, with that width, they would probably need some sort of breakwaters to make sure there aren't signficant wave action coming through the tunnel that could cause the ship to hit the side by accident. I'm also assuming that there are not significant tides there that could cause the depth of the water to vary too much.
April 19th, 2013 at 10:53 PM ^
I would assume that there would be a lock at each end to eliminate the tidal variations and waves.
Norway. Home to Black Metal and crazy ass construction ideas. It's pretty cool though.
i think this is a awesome post. its the off season. we have seen some of the worse of te human race this week so its nice to read something pretty amazing that the human race is doing.
Cool! I like tunnels! I like boats! Combining the two should be sweet! But I imagine it's gonna be tough to hold your breath through the entire tunnel like is required in normal tunnel transit.
So does my dog...
Im 31 and have already had one. Really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I was out playing bball an hour after the procedure. And on top of that, my dog has anal glad issues.
This getting old shit sucks
To make this less OT, we could point out that Michigan has a very strong Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering department.
Also, Mark Huyge, former football player, is a Naval Architect.
I'm no expert in correlation and logic but seems to me that Norweigan shipping tunnels are directly related to our offensive line production this season.
Erik Magnuson agrees
that has a hockey arena built inside a mountain?