Customer Query

[den]

Customer: You build automated water tanker fill stations, right?
Me: Yep! We've built them for mines.
C: Good. We have Euclids with 200 tonne* tanks we use to spray the roads.
Me: That won't be a problem, we can build to suit.
C: But there's a power problem. The fill stations will have to use gravity to move the water.
Me: That's still not a problem. We've built gravity-fed systems before.
C: And the tankers have to fill in less than 5 minutes.
Me: ...
Me: ...
Me: ...
Me: (grabs calculator. 200,000/300=667 litres/second)
Me: Riiiight.


Over half a tonne of water per second. Fed by gravity. Time to talk to a hydraulic engineer.







*200,000 litres

Comments

[aeto.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Put the resivoir up high enough. :>

STOPPING the water when all is done might pose another problem, I admit.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I can see a water hammer named "Mjolnir."

[tropism.livejournal.com]

What's a water hammer?

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_hammer

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

It's the "BANG!" you get when you turn off a tap too fast. Imagine that in a 12" pipe pushing 1/2 a tonne/second. The trick is to use a gate valve connected to a very slow-moving actuator so the flow is slowed before it stops, then small hammer/vacuum arrestors to catch that last bit as the gate slams shut.