The link is to a "television" site, so I doubt the link will stay long.
Oil field companies seem to pop up overnight. At least it looks that way on the landscape. Many of these companies are using Sprung Buildings - portable structures that can be built at an unbelievable speed.
A Sprung Building is a structure that uses kevlar-type fabric coated with vinyl and then is placed over an aluminum I-Beam ribbing structure. Because of how it`s made, companies can erect them quickly.
“We just got done doing a structure for Baker Hughes that was 11,000 square feet, and even with some bad weather, we got it done in less than three weeks" says Structure Solutions owner Steven Below.
And what makes these facilities so unique is that they can withstand the cold of the North Pole and the heat of the Middle East.
At the Twin Cities MSP airport they put up one of these in two months. It was large enough for a Boeing 727 sized jetliner with doors longer than the wingspan and higher than the tail.
ReplyDeleteThe world's largest one is in Germany. http://www.oobject.com/giant-airship-hangars/indoor-beach-in-german-airship-hangar/1549/
Wow, that one in Germany is huge, based on the link.
DeleteThe structure is in Brandenberg, (former East) Germany. Note the tiny size of the parked cars on each side. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&t=k&ll=52.039306560768836,13.749700784683228&z=17
ReplyDeleteThe original plan was to build a heavy-lift cargo airship. Basically have a blimp type bag support and all of the main weight, fuel and emergency ballast. There would be four large propellers with turbojet engines. Basically four very large helicopter rotors. These could vector or tilt so total prop thrust could be used for lift. When moving forward the gasbag would provide "kiting effect" lift.
A workable idea, the initial one could have had a cargo lift of 100 tons, about four times the biggest helicopter "line lift".
Like the Delorean motor car, this was built in a very distressed area with a "go for broke" government funding. When you design a markedly different car or flying machine there are always problems and extra costs before you get it right. The Skyhook project has these problems and the German government lost the will to keep on financing it. Added to that, the project was started in the mid 1990's when crude oil and mineral prices were low. A key market was to be oil and mineral work in otherwise inaccessible places like swamps and permafrost. The prefabricated cargo could have unlimited dimensions.
As a side-note one idea being toyed with is an airship built to carry up to 20 million cubic feet of natural gas. Mostly for far inland areas like Eastern Russia where huge amounts of natural gas is flared. There would be an outer helium balloon layer with gasbags inside that contain natural gas or an oxygen free gas like flue exhaust gas or nitrogen. It would use basically free natural gas for an engine fuel.
If it could deliver the natural gas to someplace that needs it (hopefully the terminal is offshore and downwind) at $10 per CCF that would be $200K per flight. The cost of operation is supposed to be roughly the same as a Marine LNG ship but this can travel over land.
Safer than the Hindenburg but it would still be 90% natural gas, which has the around the same flammability as hydrogen. It would hopefully have some very fireproof "safe rooms for the very small crew.
You wrote: "Like the Delorean motor car, this was built in a very distressed area with a "go for broke" government funding. When you design a markedly different car or flying machine there are always problems and extra costs before you get it right. The Skyhook project has these problems and the German government lost the will to keep on financing it. Added to that, the project was started in the mid 1990's when crude oil and mineral prices were low."
DeleteWhy does this remind me of the bullet train Governor Brown wants to build in California at a cost in excess of $100 billion.
The CA high speed rail mandated to go 15% faster than other systems by a "first timer" seems like the ultimate money pit.
ReplyDeleteFor a more sober-project I was thinking of either the Boeing Dreamliner or that largest Airbus. Both had luge delays and cost-overruns. Like the military designing something like a new fighter jet they had the deep-pockets and will to push the project through. Sometimes, things work backward. In the 1960's Boeing almost went broke trying to build a supersonic passenger jet. The Boeing 747 Jumbo was a side project to carry freight. Thousands of 747's have been built, it is a cash cow for Boeing.
I have an interest in airships and have meaning to check out the specs on the Skyhook hanger. Basically, 600 feet span at the floor and a maximum arch height of 300 feet. The Denver Airport has that "circus tent" fabric roof with a designed working life of 60 years for the fabric. The German hanger
cost around eighty-million Euros or around $100 million USD. It is 1100 feet long and opens on only one end.
Yes, it's a huge "money pit." There are so many reasons why there will never be a "bullet train" in the US, successful or otherwise.
DeleteAt best, the "bullet train" will reach whatever top speeds the engineers and politicians agree upon, but the train will drop to 5 mph when it goes through urban areas, making the average speed the second most important metric regarding speed/time. The most important metric will still be how long it takes to get somewhere, factoring in waiting on the train to get moving; slowing down through urban areas; and then, most of all, creeping, literally creeping into the urban stations in downtown San Francisco or wherever the terminal is.
If the terminal is downtown, it goes without saying that the train will creep in at 5 mph for the last 8 miles through highly congested SF peninsula -- even I can do the math on that one.
And like traveling by air, one still ends up at the destination without a car. Nope, Californians are too much in love with their cars to give them up, and by the time the bullet train is built, everyone in California will be driving electric vehicles.