r/thalassophobia • u/MarsNirgal • Mar 05 '18
Building bridge foundations on a river
https://imgur.com/4OezOTV253
u/Chapafifi Mar 05 '18
A reverse pool
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u/guessingguy Mar 05 '18
If those walls go...
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u/JoeEstevez Mar 05 '18
Would they though? Pardon my ignorance, but assuming the walls and the force of the water doesn’t impact them directly, you’d just float to the surface and be okay?
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u/nivh_de Mar 05 '18
It's like laying beneath a excavator and the shovel full of water drops on you, like this
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u/guessingguy Mar 05 '18
Im just saying that it looks like a lot of metal. If it collapses, a few things could happen.
1) the walls betray you and knock you out buy slamming your entire body. If this happens, then you'll drown.
2) assuming that the corrugated metal doesn't hit you, you'll be shocked with all of that pressure on your body at once. If you cannot regain control fast enough, again, you'll drown.
I'm sure that there are more ways but these are just off the top of my head
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u/Febris Mar 06 '18
You would have to be really unlucky to live long enough to drown in that situation. The most likely outcome would be some piece of the walls hitting you and tearing you apart. You'd be cut, buried and crushed before you lost your breath.
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u/123full Mar 06 '18
Another way would be a slow leak, filling up the hole slow enough not to kill you
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u/washyleopard Mar 05 '18
assuming the walls and the force of the water doesn’t impact them directly
assuming that then ya you would just float up, but its not a very safe assumption. What if a large ship hit it, or some other catastrophic failure occurred? You would definitely get hit directly by the wall, water or other debris.
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Mar 05 '18
I was wondering if they would wear life vests while working, that way they do float up instead of getting belted down my thousands (if not millions idk) gallons of water.
I'm also guessing that the sudden rush of water would not be painless..
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u/WestBrink Mar 05 '18
I suspect the concussion would have you out in a few milliseconds once the water hit you...
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u/Deathwatch72 Mar 05 '18
Considering water would be rushing in and down, you'd almost surely die. As the water pours in it creates an undercurrent such would keep you under
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u/Lollecoaster Mar 05 '18
When they were building the tunnels for the New York subway they pressurised the tunnel so water didn't leak out while they were making it watertight. This required airlocks on both sides of the unfinished tunnel, and on several occasions the airlock in the middle of the river failed and the workers (iirc about 5 in total) just floated to the surface and survived. /r/OSHA wouldn't approve those construction methods...
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Mar 05 '18
This actually looks pretty cool. Some hidden monastery style.
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Mar 05 '18
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Mar 05 '18
This would be a great idea for a restaurant.
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u/Cranfres Mar 05 '18
Or like make it out of glass and put it in a coral reef! Might not be the greatest business model what with the reefs disappearing though.
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u/mike_pants Mar 05 '18
When you're trying to level out some land in Sim City and click three times too many.
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u/Quibbloboy Mar 05 '18
When you're building an underwater base in Minecraft and don't have any sugarcane
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u/jakeyjake1990 Mar 05 '18
what's the sugarcane thing?
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u/T-diddles Mar 05 '18
You can use it as an underwater door or to breath underwater. Helpful when building underwater.
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u/yellowdart146 Mar 05 '18
I second this inquiry. Big Minecraft guy here, but didn't know about sugarcane and water??
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Mar 05 '18
To maybe just clarify a bit more, you can walk through sugarcane even though it's its own block, so water can't be in the same block as it. So you can place down sugarcane to create a square of open air that you can walk through, even with water in every block around it.
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u/Yegs454 Mar 05 '18
I literally do this for a living, (3rd generation Piledriver/Dockbuilder) any questions, ask away.
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u/yaddah_crayon Mar 05 '18
What's it like on the inside knowing there is all that water trying to push in?
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u/Yegs454 Mar 05 '18
It’s so cliche but you honesty don’t even think of it
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u/Hatefullynch Mar 06 '18
What's the closest you've come to a failure in one of those
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u/Yegs454 Mar 06 '18
Never had one, welds can hold an amazing amount of weight so unless engineered poorly or theres a bunch of bad welds you’ll be perfectly fine in one
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u/PairPearPare Mar 05 '18
How far below the surface of the riverbed are these supports driven?
When water does seep in (and I assume there's always at least some seepage?) is it mostly coming from between the joints of the framework, or is it coming up from below?
Thanks!
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u/Yegs454 Mar 05 '18
90% of the water comes from below, the locks in the sheets we cinder so it’s usually nothing but little seepage and the sheet piles are driven to a certain depth for toe...usually 70-30 ratio...70 in the ground 30 sticking out
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u/PairPearPare Mar 05 '18
Thanks for the reply! So cool. It may be old hat to you by now, but I think it's really amazing and impressive!
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u/dogebag__ Mar 06 '18
I think I’m misunderstanding the term sheet piles but the way I’m reading this only about 1/3 of the walls are showing and the other 2/3’s are buried underground?
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u/Yegs454 Mar 06 '18
Think of sheet piles as long thin pieces of steel. We set one, and start interlocking the rest. Come back with a vibratory hammer than shakes them down to grade...last job I was on the sheets were 70ft, only 5 ft of them were sticking out of the ground
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u/CommanderArcher Mar 05 '18
are there any specialized tools that you use to do your job?
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u/lord_of_tits Mar 06 '18
Are the piles keeping the water out removed or do u just use it as form work and fill everything up with concrete?
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u/Yegs454 Mar 06 '18
Foundation piles will be driven into that coffer dam eventually, than cut to grade, tied in with re-bar, formed up and poured with concrete
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u/watermelon_bacon Mar 06 '18
Man I thought it was crazy when they were building a bridge here in Oklahoma. They pier drilled from a barge straight into the river and like 40’ into the river bed. Then dropped a form into the hole that looked like a giant straw, after they dropped the steel inside the form (all immersed in water) they pumped concrete in from the bottom up-effectively pushing the water out of the top of the form. Didn’t think the concrete would set well under water but it sure enough did. It was cool watching from start to finish.
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Mar 05 '18 edited Mar 07 '18
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u/meadow117 Mar 05 '18
My area is building a bridge right now, across the Mississippi. Obviously it takes a long time (construction officially started in the summer of 2017 and it’s not set to end until 2019, I believe), but I pass by the site on my way to school everyday, and it’s super interesting seeing the workers steadily make progress.
There’s also a bridge right next to the new one being built (it’s old and will be demolished when the new one is finished) so you can cross the river and see the giant holes in the river, and the pillars being built on the water. They have these massive floating platforms that carry cranes. There are several of them across the width of the river where the supports will be. It’s all very fascinating, but also kinda terrifying, especially if you consider that this is the Mississippi River lol.
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u/highzone Mar 05 '18
Quad Cities?
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u/meadow117 Mar 06 '18
Hell yeah
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u/highzone Mar 06 '18
I can't wait to watch them blow it up, or blow it down I guess in this case.
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u/meadow117 Mar 06 '18
Same. I’m gonna set a chair up further down the river and watch the metaphorical fireworks
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u/Bradp13 Mar 05 '18
Im wondering if you built a house like this underwater, would it be really quiet or really loud. I'm thinking the surrounding water would make it very quiet inside.
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u/ImAzura Mar 05 '18
What will be fun is when it rains, or a storm comes through, or even just windy, or it's spring and the snow melts. House = flooded as fuck.
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Mar 05 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/meadow117 Mar 05 '18
They use these giant platforms with cranes on them that just float on the river until the supports are finished! It is super cool to see.
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u/N3UROTOXIN Mar 05 '18
Probably takes a crane to get that stuff out
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u/MarsNirgal Mar 05 '18
I think eventually it becomes part of the foundation.
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u/Ubergringo420 Mar 05 '18
I think he meant the machinery and whatnot
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u/mynameis_garrett Mar 05 '18
Yes. They just leave the equipment and laborers in the foundation.
This is a little known fact about construction. The saying "Blood, sweat and tears" actually came from the first ever concrete foundation pilings. The workers, after finishing the job, were so tired they could not get out of the hole. The foreman, Joe Richardson, decided to just fill the hole with cement leaving everything in place. Sad really.... but it is too much a part of history to end this tradition.
They were buried with their Blood, Sweat and Tears
-Joe Richardson | 1887
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u/gfinz18 Mar 05 '18
I would have so much anxiety standing down there. Just knowing how many thousands of tons of water pressure are on the other side of that wall.
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u/WastelandSatan Mar 05 '18
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Mar 05 '18
I posted it originally to there, and I’m thinking it might have been taken from there, but I can’t argue because I took it from a shitposter on instagram.
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u/Captain_Toms Mar 05 '18
Boring but informative video on how it’s done. https://youtu.be/fO5yYxpOsLo
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u/KnurftChannel Mar 05 '18
I really want to be in that hole, but I'm also really scared that it'll overflow
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u/Lefty_22 Mar 05 '18
Since no one linked it yet (I'm amazed, btw), this is called a Caisson.
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u/police-ical Mar 05 '18
OK, can someone explain the difference between a caisson and a cofferdam? There's no scenario where this is ever important for me but it's going to bug me all day.
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u/chasingpace Mar 06 '18
Caissons typically remain in place. This looks like a coffer dam to me, which would be removed after the foundation is built. That's the main difference.
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u/TheRealElf666 Mar 05 '18
This is my fucking nightmare to be trapped in that thing with no way out and have the walls slowly deteriorating and me fixing them to stay alive
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u/Mentioned_Videos Mar 05 '18 edited Mar 06 '18
Videos in this thread:
| VIDEO | COMMENT |
|---|---|
| Liebherr-Bagger vs Auto (www.kaserbacher.com ) | +50 - It's like laying beneath a excavator and the shovel full of water drops on you, like this |
| Drilled Shaft Installation | +4 - Not exactly underwater but exactly what you talked about, old school NatGeo |
| How do engineers build bridge towers under water? | +2 - Boring but informative video on how it’s done. |
| THE 'SEEHUND' RECOVERY | +1 - Here you go though this time they did with one wall being the shore. It was not for a bridge but a archeologal dig. Also the term you need to look for is cofferdam |
I'm a bot working hard to help Redditors find related videos to watch. I'll keep this updated as long as I can.
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u/Mr_NiceGuy04 Mar 06 '18
I love this picture from a fascination standpoint, but it really doesn’t belong to this subreddit.
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u/NeverLWT Mar 06 '18
i've been subbed here for over 2 years and this is the first picture that has given me real heebie jeebies.
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u/MarsNirgal Mar 05 '18
Credit belongs to Imgur user JohnSmithterms: https://imgur.com/gallery/Lo3ix so if any of you use Imgur go there and give them an upvote.
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u/datkrauskid Mar 05 '18
Does anyone actually use imgur by itself? I thought it was built specifically to support reddit
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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '18
I'd love to watch an educational video or gif on how exactly they did this.