Dedicated to ElSid: The never ending tech story

[rick1776]

OK ElSid I thought I would jump in and dedicate this post to you. Mr. Perpetual. If you have any story that has mild overtones of being tech, be it funny serious or something in between this is the place to post it.

Hmmm let me think about it and Ill come back with a story.

cheers
rick1776

[El Sid]

I'm still waiting rick

BTW, I think that Mr. Perpetual is not quite correct. In my student days perhaps. Well almost. Then I was Mr. PP ie. Mr. Perpetually Pissed hehehe ;D

OK, here goes with a down, down

Burrrpp!

Nice

[El Sid]

OK, rick then I'll have a go.

This goes back to '76. A long time ago, but brilliant times for me.

I had just finished off my finals and was given the details of what my first real job was to be: Site Engineer (Structures) on a new contract some 150k's north of Cape Town on the road to Namibia. "Tell me more" I said. And the more they old me the more I thought to my ownsome: "Am I petrified or what?" It was to be the re-construction of some 85k's of new road and 5 bridges together with about 80 in-situ box culverts and +/- 120 pipe culverts would be my responsibility. And the tendered Contract period was 3 years. OK, who was I to argue, so I packed my earthly belongings in the VW-1600 (later 1750cc but that's another story) and pushed off to Piketberg.

Obviously, all of the construction did not start simultaneously and the works on the bridge over the Berg River (does the Berg River Canoe Marathon ring a bell?) was only begun about 4 months after I had arrived on site. It was this bridge that gave us all nightmares and this story is about the foundations, or rather, a specific part of the foundations viz. the caissons. Let me explain. The bridge, in essence comprised a prestressed dual-cell hollow-box deck of 6 spans with an abutment for each of the approaches and 5 piers in between. 3 of the piers had normal spread footing foundations and the remaining 2, closest to the river centre, had to be founded on caissons, 2 caissons per pier footing each.

Let me explain a bit more about the site itself. The location of the bridge is some 60 k's from the ocean and the river does not fall more than something like 9 metres over that distance. The caissons had to be founded on bed-rock about 12 metres below the river bed, which is roughly 3 metres below sea level.

"What are caissons?", you may ask. Basically they are cylinders (in this case concrete "pipes"), placed vertically in position at first and then the soil is excavated and mucked out from the inside causing the cylinder to start "dropping" inder it's own weight. This is continued untill the "caisson" reaches it's final position.

BTW, stop me if you know all this or have a and catch up later.

Our caissons had a 5,5m O.D. and a 4,5m I.D. with a wall thickness of 500mm. All reinforced concrete of course. We started off by dozing a platform into the river and the set out the correct position for the 1st of the 2 caissons for the first pier. Then the formwork (shuttering) and reinforcing steel is placed and fixed. A 3metre high affair. Then the concrete is poured into this "mould". Once the concrete has set and the correct strench is reached, the formwork is stripped and the process is repeated for the 2nd of the 2 caissons.

OK, were getting closer to action now.

In the meantime, an in-house designed and manufactured "Scotch Derrick", a manually operated crane, is erected to see to the removal of excavated sand. (There is a story about that crane but later, much later. Maybe one day when i'm in a guilt ridden confession mood)

So there we are, digging away and mucking away. And the 2 caissons drop. Thump! - down 50mm. Dig, muck away, dig, muck away - Thump! Another 50mm. OK, over to the other one and the same story. The 2 of them going down in tandem. Thump!, thump!, thump. All too glorious. Me petrified? No ways! Far too chuffed to even think of it.

So on the following morning we get to the site and see the 2 caissons are brimming with water. No problem at all. On the radio to the workshop and they bring the generator and a 4" KSB centrifugal pump. With everything connected up we start pumping and in no time the 2 caissons are empty and we can comtinue to "Dig, muck away and thump!" again. OK, so the seepage water does start getting more and the pump has to be used more regularly. No problem really, After the 3rd or 4th day we had both of them down the full 3 metres. So all the excavation stops and the second 3 metre extension lift has to be constructed on top of the existing. Again the formwork and steel followed by the concrete.

So there we go again. Deeper and deeper. And the seepage getting more and more as the pressure difference gets more and more with each "Thump!" No problem. The 2nd 4" KSB is brought in with an extra generator. The suction hose is dropped in the hole and the added pumping solves the problem (temporarily). The deeper we got the more difficult it became to prime the pump and the suction head was becoming too great for the pumps to be efficient. OK, so we sling the one into the caisson to bring it closer to the water surface but that turns out to be a crappy idea. Me petrified? No ways! At least I didn't think so.

Right, a better plan. Phone head-office: "Send us the 6" Flygt submersible we know you have" So we get it after a day or two, drop it in, switch on and there you go! Bob's your uncle! Boy, can that thing pump water!

We had a reasonable amount of success at first but as we got even deeper the pumps would just no longer do the trick. Not even all of them together. And the costs started climbing and climbing and climbing. The Berg River bridge had become the talk of the village and more and more people came to view our workings on site. Our rate of progress had gone down to only a couple of millimetres a day. The costgroup and number for that specific operation was GBR16, I remember that very, very well. Even the guys in the pub new it.

By this time we were about 9 metres down and holding position, so to speak. New ideas and plans had to be made. The idea/instruction that came from HQ was to well-point the area around the caissons. OK, although not particularly happy with the idea myself I had to accept the instructions given to me. I wanted to grout up the area with bentonite or even cement but that was shot down. So we all waited for the well-points to be installed so we could continue with our money losing caissons.

It was during this waiting period I got an idea to try something different. More for the kicks of it than anything else. I had heard somewhere of an "Air Lift Pump" and altough I had never seen such a thing in my life (and I have'nt since either), I decided to follow a gut feeling. There were some 110mm quick coupling "Perrot" pipes (the agricultural type) available. So, in the workshop, we cut the end of one of these diagonally and to it we welded a 25mm galvanised pipe bent upwards into the opening at the bottom. To the 25mm pipe we attached a coupling for a compressor hose. We took this whole contraption down to the caissons (which were absolutely full of water), got hold of a 600CFM Compressor connected the whole lot and dropped the "suction" end of the Perrot pipe to the bottom. The "delivery" end was just a plain "lay-flat" hose. With the compressor started and feeding air into the bottom of the Perrot pipe this thing started farting and spewing water and sand out of the "lay-flat" delivery hose at one heluva rate of knots. But you couldn't control the damned thing. The hose was all over the place, blasting everyone and everything close by with sand and water. The amount of sand that it brought up astounded me and my mind started working over time. Then the "lay-flat" hose goes for a ball of chalk! The sand was just too abrasive. So with new ideas of a rubber lined elbow at the top and rubber lining to the other affected parts, I put forward the idea to my bosses. They did not like the idea one bit! "Shit!" I said: "I even went down the 9 metres with goggles and wet-suit and I saw for myself that it works!" Still, a big "NO CAN DO"

So we went their "well-pointing" way and finished with that operation about 3 months and lotsa bucks later.

I still don't understand why they would not give it a bash. I also don't understand why I got such a good bonus that particular year and never again since.

Me petrified? No ways! Puzzled? Yes!

[rick1776]

Elsid,

Nice story, sorry ive been slack and should write something. Well your escapades make mine look like dream runs. Ive actually been to Namibia and did a job at Rossing Uranium mine. Stayed at Swakopmund and drove about 60 odd kays every day.

I remember the sales engineer (big on sales little on the engineering side of things) coming to me really excited that he had managed to sell a nucleonic instrumentation set up to Rossing. I said great, what will we be attempting to measure and what levels?

He rattles off a list of elements one of which was Uranium of course. I inquire as to the levels that need to be measured. He casually rattles them off and then says down to 1ppm U. I said, we can do all except the really low ppm stuff. Our equipment will struggle to measure anything below 20-30 ppm.

Roger goes pale and says you dont understand Rick. We HAVE to be able to measure it. Ive just signed the contract and it says we CAN measure 1ppm. Well we might be able to do it but the equipment will have to be modified and I cant promise you anything. How much time do we have? 4 months to build and install.

For *ucks sake. 4 months to lab test whether we can even measure 1ppm and then have to build a one off piece of equipment. Needless to say I lab tested the equipment, managed to improve the resolution from 30ppm to about 1ppm, the electronic guys modified the circuits to cope with the increased X-ray signal content, the machine shop modified the radioactive reading head to cope, we used a different isotope to avoid burying the incoming X-ray signal with "noise" and it ended up working a treat.

Then 2 days before I am to get on the plane Roger gets back to be and says Oh by the way they want optical cabling to send/receive data from the control room to the instrument. What do we use?

For *UCKS sake, we use normal shielded twisted pair cable and send data via a RS232-RS485 convertor.

Oh no they want it sent via optical cables, see it says so in the contract. I quickly talk to the electronics guys and they laugh when I say youve got two days to design and build something. Now we get on the internet and believe it or not there is a supplier in Israel that builds the a unit to the specs required. We get them to ship the unit direct to Rossing. After a few teething problems I got the unit working.

*ucking sales engineers.


As an aside Namibiams are a very polite race of people as are Sth Africans. They were very easy going and technically very good. Helped me beyond what I could have expeted. The chemist in their labs was very good and way better than most chemists in Australia.

cheers
rick1776

[Henrik]

Great stories guys!! I love reading these kind of stories, and can only hope for more.

Sorry I can't really contribute to this thread with tales of my own since I have no tech knowledge or experience. Maybe I should start a similar thread elsewhere with some finance/banking stories. Although it may not always have the same excitement, there are some with an interesting mix of big sums of money and criminals. Problem is, I am tied by secrecy rules that are not taken lightly here. Still, I might be able to put something together in a way that the story is told, but no precise details are mentioned.

Thanks again, and here is a beer for each of you (and one for me too!)

[El Sid]

Henrik said:

Although it may not always have the same excitement, there are some with an interesting mix of big sums of money and criminals.

Henrik,

I like the money and criminals bit. Sounds like the proper ingredients for a pukka Hollywood movie. C'mon, that can only be exciting!

But then again, can we be trusted?

Have another and think about it.

[Henrik]

I'll give it a shot soon, put some things down on paper, and if I'm happy with it, I'll post it.

Oh, and I'll gladly have another

[El Sid]

I did mention a story about CRT's in the V6 Story. So here goes.

Thie story unfolded here in Gordon's Bay where I now live. Also sometime in the mid 70's. The venue, so to speak, for the "feel-good" drama was the white building in the picture.The "Van Riebeeck Hotel"



I was visiting my cousin and her husband, Kevin, in Paarl, some 60 k's away one weekend. Then a mutual friend, Whiskey, I forget his real name, turns up and asks for assistance with the moving of his furniture to a new place in Gordon's Bay. OK, we say, of course sensing there would be a few refreshments to be had afterwards. It so happened that Heiné, Kevin's 6 year old son, had to go along as his mom had to do something else that day.

So to cut a long story short, we finish all the moving of the furniture and move off to the Van Riebeeck for a couple of . So as we are having our liquid refreshment, Heiné spots a TV-Tennis machine and Kevin gives him some coins to operate the thing. This was before the Arcade Games we have today. Just a black screen with two paddles moving up and down and a little cursor going "poing", bounce, "poing", bounce, "poing", bzzt! and the points scored are accumulated. This keeps him busy for a while as we keep ourselves busy with our

Then the coins run out and Kevin has no more. So Heiné asks his dad how the thing worked. "Ask uncle Sid" says Kev. OK, trying to think like a kid thinks, I tell him that there are 2 tiny men inside the machine that react to how you turn the buttons and they either hit the ball back or sometimes they miss. "Naaah.." says Heiné "How does it really work?"

Right, physics and all that stuff I reckon. So I tell him that it actually is a Cathode Ray Tube. Now a CRT has an electron gun in the back and a stream of electrons are "fired" at a fluorescent screen wich creates the white spot on the screen. Now, placed horizontally and verically around the electron stream are positviely charged anode plates. By turning the buttons on the console the positive charge to these anode plates are varied thus causing the stream of electrons to be "deflected" in a different direction, causing the spot to move to another position on the screen and so on and so on and so on.

At the time I was pretty clued up with the workings of a CRT as it had formed part of my studies then, so I elaborated on every bit of detail I knew. Kevin & Whiskey were sitting with big grins on their faces as I went on a lecturing trip and not knowing if I was bullshitting or not. And Heiné stood watching me with big eyes as I explained.

Then, as I finish the lecture. Heiné says to me: "Yes, I know that. But how does it work?"

Kids? oh well gimme a

[Henrik]

ROFL!!!!

Maybe Heiné is some top IT engineer today, and he can explain to you how it REALLY works!!!

[rick1776]

Henrik,

By all means tell us a good cops and robbers story. You can change the names of the persons and the name of the banks etc. Or just say bank X and person Y. If you need to put a tech spin on the story say they used a fast car for the get away or that they used a really high tech modem to transfer money from bank A to bank B.

Man if I had money Id love to have secret bank accounts etc. Ive got a spare hundred or so, could I open a secret bank account with such a small amount?

Apparently here in Australia we have a government watchdog (cant remember the name of the department) but it monitors transfers of money into and out of the country. Any amount and I think its as low as AUD4000 must be channelled through this watchdog and the moneys whereabouts is tracked. Anything suspicious and you get a please explain. Its mainly to track drug trafficers but I suspect they catch other criminals as well.

So how do you avoid the money being tracked etc. Tell tell Henrik. Spy verses spy stuff facinates me.

cheers
rick1776

[El Sid]

rick1776 said:

Apparently here in Australia we have a government watchdog (cant remember the name of the department) but it monitors transfers of money into and out of the country.

Rick,

I may just have the right contact for you. On a "whistle-stop" tour of Europe in '95, one of the couples in pur group were from Adelaide. I have been meaning to get their names from our records for a long time now but never seem to remember. The reason of course is to boast to you a bit by saying "Hey I know such and such in Adelaide" Anyway, as far as I remember, he said he was some hotshot in some intelligence department.

OK, I'll get the name and contact but I want in, right?



"If I were a rich man..... dubbadubbadubbadubbadaa..."

Must see that movie again

[rick1776]

ElSid,

Yeah I read an article in the local newspaper about this watchdog government department, wish I could remember the name. In the article there were three "business men". One in Sdyney and two in Adelaide. One of the ones in Adelaode was a high profile night club owner, the other was an unemployed person. They "spot" the unemployed person tranferring 20 odd thousand into some business account in Asia, not once but twice over a three month period. This gets alarm bells ringing. So they look into it and track all his transfers. Well the guy is getting money transferred to him by a guy in Sydney. So they investigate him. He is transferring money to not only the unemployed guy but to the high profile night club owner. You guessed it, the night club owner is is also transferring money into the same account in Asia.

Big alarm bells ringing. They put surveillance teams on all 3 guys. Bang they catch them with a big Heroin shipment.

Scary stuff. How much stuff gets monitored and we dont even know.

cheers
rick1776

[rick1776]

Oh, another story, not tech but it does involve a car. My next door neighbour of many years, I grew up with him, went to school with him but was never what you would call good mates with him. Anyway my brother and I would always laugh and say he must be dealing drugs as he seems to drive flash cars, buying a new one, whenever he feels like it. Not bad for someone who works as a greengrocer. Must be lots of money in fruit and veg we used to say to each other.

Well he comes over one day and hes talking to my brother and me. Funny thing happened Alby (thats my brother) says Natt. My car broke down last night so I rang my brother to come and pick me up on the mobile (cell) phone. He said he couldnt come and get me so I dicided to start walking home as it was only a few km to home. I start walking home and a few hundred metres back is this police car just parked on the side of the road. As I walk past one of the officers says, Cant Vince (Natt's brother) pick you up Natt?

Natt who isnt very smart, asks how did they know I just rang my brother?? Shit!!!! Alby and I just look at each other and think Natts in BIG shit and he doesnt even know it.

Anyway to cut a long story short a couple of months later they was a simultaneous three house raid and bang all nabbed. To be fair on Natt, he had no brains and was just a goffer. Deliver this package Natt, dont ask questions. Still, busted is busted.

cheers
rick1776

[Cine_Man]

Reading about your flooding caissons reminded me of two things.... there is an oilfield technique here utilized when drilling through an aquifer where the target is frozen with brine, and then you're just dealing with ice.

I am also thinking about the mystery of "Oak Island". Its one of those supposed pirate treasure sites, located along the coast of Nova Scotia, here in Canada. Off the top of my head, every attempt to reach the bottom of the "Money Pit" has resulted in total failure, over a stretch of nearly a century now. The shaft is booby trapped with flood gates that are connected to the ocean at a minimum of three points... it is diabolically ingenious... and its date of construction is not well defined... although its materials suggest that it was built by a European organization... incorporating oak timbers and scads of coconut fibre. In all of the recovery efforts, only one gold link of chain has ever been recoverd.... and one X-Ray picture apparently revealed a partial human skeleton.
www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/OakIsland/
ARRRRRRR shiver me timbers.......
Cine_...

[El Sid]

Cine_Man said:

Reading about your flooding caissons reminded me of two things.... there is an oilfield technique here utilized when drilling through an aquifer where the target is frozen with brine, and then you're just dealing with ice.

The ground freezing bit I have come across before. In the "Humor" (BTW, Humour is not always very well defined so one needs to think before you ink.) section, where I spoke about the missing dog, I mentioned a tunnel. Some way into the western entrance mud was encountered. The perimeter of the tunnel section was frozen before the excavation took place(Non-TBM). I was not directly involved and have searched the Internet for info, but to no avail. The website of the contractor, Hochtief from Germany, responsible for that portion of the works don't even mention the tunnel.

Cine_Man said:

I am also thinking about the mystery of "Oak Island". Its one of those supposed pirate treasure sites, located along the coast of Nova Scotia, here in Canada.

If I'm not mistaken, there was something on "Oak Island" on either the "Discovery" or "National Graphics" channel. Is there not something about a shortage of potable water on that island also?