Author Topic: Elon The Boring Company  (Read 1623761 times)

Offline MickQ

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #20 on: 01/27/2017 11:26 am »
Alternately, he has grown to hate I-405 from his home in Bel Air driving south to SpaceX/Hawthorne. That stretch of lovely LA freeway can drive anyone insane.

Helicopter  ;D

C'mon Chuck !  A helicopter?  How could Elon use anything that basic ?  Rocketpack !  Now you're talking.

Offline Lar

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #21 on: 01/27/2017 02:19 pm »
Guys, I'm part of the problem but let's keep this confined to how it ties to space, Mars, or SpaceX... we don't allow general Tesla or SolarCity posts either.
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Offline meekGee

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #22 on: 01/27/2017 02:27 pm »
I really like melting a thin layer on the walls for sealing, but melting through the front wall seems hugely power expensive and you still need to move the molten rock out of the tunnel, so you need to keep it hot and flowing...  A lava river...  Just gets more and more crazy.

Conventional rock grinders/crushers, to me, look simpler.
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Offline rsdavis9

Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #23 on: 01/27/2017 02:30 pm »
Well one method of using heat to tunnel rock is called spalling. They use in granite quarries to cut vertical channels so they can then use wire cutting to remove slabs. Basically a oxygen fuel torch that pops off little chips from thermal expansion. It doesn't have to melt the rock. It only has to heat and crack.
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Offline meekGee

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #24 on: 01/27/2017 07:10 pm »
Well one method of using heat to tunnel rock is called spalling. They use in granite quarries to cut vertical channels so they can then use wire cutting to remove slabs. Basically a oxygen fuel torch that pops off little chips from thermal expansion. It doesn't have to melt the rock. It only has to heat and crack.
I like that better...
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Offline john smith 19

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #25 on: 01/27/2017 08:34 pm »
Well one method of using heat to tunnel rock is called spalling. They use in granite quarries to cut vertical channels so they can then use wire cutting to remove slabs. Basically a oxygen fuel torch that pops off little chips from thermal expansion. It doesn't have to melt the rock. It only has to heat and crack.
Interesting. The Los Alamos Subterrene concept came in 2 versions. A "soft rock" and a "hard rock" concept.

Both melted the rock at the periphery of the tunnel. Both used this to allow cutting heads to penetrate the tunnel face as it was no longer fully supported at its edges.

The soft rock M/C fed this to conventional cutting heads.
The hard rock design had what look like a series of "spikes" on the front to create thermal shock to shatter the rock and have it fall into a conveyor.

The power level for these machines was around 25-30MW. This is about 1/2 the size of a normal submarine nuclear reactor.
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #26 on: 01/28/2017 12:59 pm »
I vote for a electric car only tunnel. And only electric cars with autopilot.

The e405...

Auto-piloted, electric vehicles in tunnels... could also be the model for the construction process (a.k.a. mining droids) as well as for many Martian apps.  Mining/tunneling with high bandwidth, autonomous components.  Surface applications even easier (building roads, landing pads, berms around launch pads, whatever...)
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Offline RedLineTrain

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #27 on: 01/28/2017 04:40 pm »
Another tweet from last night...

Quote from: Elon Musk Tweet
Elon Musk (@elonmusk); January 28, 2017 @ 11:53 pm
And we start digging the tunnel tonight

Link

It occurs to me that SpaceX would have to get a permit from the city of Hawthorne.  If anybody knows how to access their permit system, that perhaps we could get more information on SpaceX's plans.
« Last Edit: 01/28/2017 04:52 pm by RedLineTrain »

Offline Oersted

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #28 on: 01/28/2017 05:17 pm »
Just checked out the City of Hawthorne website and read about a plan for the area near SpaceX and Tesla called "Hawthornext":

https://hawthornextplan.com/

"The HawthorNEXT project seeks to develop a plan for sustainability, building development, jobs, transportation and open space in the area south of the Hawthorne Airport and west of Crenshaw Boulevard. The plan area is an approximately 150-acre area located just south of the SpaceX headquarters, Tesla design lab, municipal airport and nearby Crenshaw Metro light rail station. The project will encourage a compact urban form where a diversity of land uses are within close walking distance of home and work. It will accommodate new development projects that are linked via convenient, safe active transit routes (walking, bicycling, and public transportation). Future development will incorporate sustainability and smart growth concepts that will reduce dependency on the private automobile. As a presage to what the future of Hawthorne can be, the HawthorNEXT area will usher in a new urban community for its residents, businesses, and South Bay region."
 
(My bold)

Offline Long EZ

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #29 on: 01/28/2017 05:23 pm »
To cut rock how about high pressure water jet cutters. Industrial ones use 10.000 psi water often with grit added for faster cutting. On Mars could you use high pressure liquid CO2? Would the CO2 turning to gas be enough to clear the debris?

Offline Rei

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #30 on: 01/30/2017 12:14 am »
You know, new ideas often come from taking concepts from other fields that one has worked in into a totally different field.  So my my mind immediately jumps to, "What concept might one bring from electric cars or rocketry to the concept of tunnelling?"

And my mind immediately jumps to "rocket engines"  ;)  Seriously, think of how fast a rocket engine dumps out heat (spall potential).  Or how much aggregate you could blast per second at high speeds into a wall, kicked up by the exhaust stream.  I have no clue if this is what he's thinking, but if he's looking to channel large amounts of energy in a short period of time....

It may also leave a melt crust, too.  Doubt that'd be strong enough to avoid the need for concrete reinforcement, but couldn't hurt...
« Last Edit: 01/30/2017 12:14 am by Rei »

Offline lambecolin

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #31 on: 01/30/2017 01:02 am »
Elon today (29th Jan) spoke at Hyperloop----------------He said the digging started today and that they were experimenting to bore tunnels at a rate of 500 to 1000 times faster than any previous boring methods.Also said they did not know what they were doing but they were just doing it!
« Last Edit: 01/30/2017 01:54 am by lambecolin »

Offline Jdeshetler

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #32 on: 01/30/2017 01:22 am »
Elon today (29th Jan) spoke at Hyperloop----------------He said the digging started today and that they were experimenting to bore tunnels at a rate of 500 to 1000 times faster than any previous boring methods.

I think he mean to say "bore tunnels at a rate of 500 to 1000% faster"

Offline DigitalMan

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #33 on: 01/30/2017 02:07 am »
Elon today (29th Jan) spoke at Hyperloop----------------He said the digging started today and that they were experimenting to bore tunnels at a rate of 500 to 1000 times faster than any previous boring methods.

I think he mean to say "bore tunnels at a rate of 500 to 1000% faster"

He did say percent

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #34 on: 01/30/2017 02:33 am »
Video of the speech, with tunnel boring stuff at the end:
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Offline TripD

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #35 on: 01/30/2017 03:30 am »
Exciting times.

Offline KelvinZero

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #36 on: 01/30/2017 04:31 am »
And my mind immediately jumps to "rocket engines"  ;)  Seriously, think of how fast a rocket engine dumps out heat (spall potential).  Or how much aggregate you could blast per second at high speeds into a wall, kicked up by the exhaust stream.  I have no clue if this is what he's thinking, but if he's looking to channel large amounts of energy in a short period of time....
I think rocket engines also do damage from the sound. I wonder if you could design some sort of oscillation where the shock wave is created from combustion in mid air (separate from the machinery) and then focuses on a point.

Maybe a bit like whatever happens in a directed high explosive, but happening in air. Maybe you spray a volume full of explosive air mixture and then trigger it in a really accurate pattern. A sort of supersonic jackhammer with no wearing parts.

I suspect we will go more mundane or perfect any radical new idea with applications on earth first, but fun to think about.

Offline Hotblack Desiato

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #37 on: 01/30/2017 09:15 am »
You know, new ideas often come from taking concepts from other fields that one has worked in into a totally different field.  So my my mind immediately jumps to, "What concept might one bring from electric cars or rocketry to the concept of tunnelling?"

And my mind immediately jumps to "rocket engines"  ;)  Seriously, think of how fast a rocket engine dumps out heat (spall potential).  Or how much aggregate you could blast per second at high speeds into a wall, kicked up by the exhaust stream.  I have no clue if this is what he's thinking, but if he's looking to channel large amounts of energy in a short period of time....

It may also leave a melt crust, too.  Doubt that'd be strong enough to avoid the need for concrete reinforcement, but couldn't hurt...

You are reminding me of something I've read close to 20 years ago (in an issue of the technology magazin P.M.). Engineers developed a new way of digging tunnels up to 10 times faster than regular, by using a rocket engine instead of the drillhead. Of course, back then that was just ridiculous, since rocket engines were expensive and could last only a few minutes.

But nowadays with a company that can produce a lot of them and which can sustain several hours of work?

I have no clue what this would do with the surrounding stone, or where the exhaust fumes will go, but maybe Musk is shooting for that concept.

Offline su27k

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #38 on: 01/30/2017 05:11 pm »
You know, new ideas often come from taking concepts from other fields that one has worked in into a totally different field.  So my my mind immediately jumps to, "What concept might one bring from electric cars or rocketry to the concept of tunnelling?"

And my mind immediately jumps to "rocket engines"  ;)  Seriously, think of how fast a rocket engine dumps out heat (spall potential).  Or how much aggregate you could blast per second at high speeds into a wall, kicked up by the exhaust stream.  I have no clue if this is what he's thinking, but if he's looking to channel large amounts of energy in a short period of time....

It may also leave a melt crust, too.  Doubt that'd be strong enough to avoid the need for concrete reinforcement, but couldn't hurt...

You are reminding me of something I've read close to 20 years ago (in an issue of the technology magazin P.M.). Engineers developed a new way of digging tunnels up to 10 times faster than regular, by using a rocket engine instead of the drillhead. Of course, back then that was just ridiculous, since rocket engines were expensive and could last only a few minutes.

But nowadays with a company that can produce a lot of them and which can sustain several hours of work?

I have no clue what this would do with the surrounding stone, or where the exhaust fumes will go, but maybe Musk is shooting for that concept.

Some quick search via Google turned up these:

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory report LA-4547: Preliminary study of the nuclear subterrene:

Quote
The rock-melting drill was invented at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
in 1960. Electrically heated, laboratory-scale drills were subsequently shown to
penetrate igneous rocks at usefully high rates, with moderate power comsumptions.
The development of compact nuclear reactors and of heat pipes now
makes possible the extension of this technology to much larger melting
penetrators, potentially capable of producing holes up to several meters in
diameter and several tens of kilometers long or deep.

Development of a rapid, versatile, economical method of boring large,
long shafts and tunnels offers solutions to many of man’s most urgent ecological,
scientific, raw-materials, and energy-supply problems. A melting method
appears to be the most promising and flexible means of producing such holes.
It is relatively insensitive to the composition, hardness, structure, and temperature
of the rock, and offers the possibilities of producing self-supporting,
glass-lined holes in almost any formation and (using a technique called lithofracturing)
of eliminating the debris-removal problem by forcing molten rock
into cracks created in the bore wall.

Large rock-melting penetrators, called Electric Subterrenes or Nuclear
Subterrenes according to the energy source used, are discussed in this report,
together with problems anticipated in their development. It is concluded that
this development is within the grasp of present technology.

There's also this German patent DE2554101A1 (pdf in German):

Quote
The excessive melted stone positioned in a ring gap produced by the melting drilling equipment is pressed in the surrounding stone. During continuous progress of the melting drilling the drilled hole is covered by a alyer of a solidified and in previous melted stone. The melting drilling equipment which receives its melting energy from liq hydrogen and oxygen discharges the energy necessary for melting the stone by one or more detonating gas flames in part of the melting head. By discharging the detonating gas flames directly against the melted stone a working temp of 3000 deg.C is achieved. This temp cannot be reached by an indirect melting method because the corrosion of the fire resistant material of the melting head would be too great.

Offline Eric Hedman

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #39 on: 01/30/2017 05:42 pm »
Another article on this:

http://www.ien.com/product-development/news/20850210/musk-has-a-mysterious-tunnel-project

Nothing really new in this.

I wonder if they are going ahead with some kind of subscale test of a new boring technology.  They probably wouldn't need much of a permit to do some short small diameter test  tunnels depending upon where they will actually be boring.

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