General > General Technical Chat
Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
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pcprogrammer:

--- Quote from: tom66 on December 17, 2022, 11:19:51 am ---I'm also surprised we don't see much of the central tube remaining, as I would have thought that would be safe from a failure of the outer walls.  Imagine if someone had been in that elevator shaft when the main tank burst.  That could have been deadly.

--- End quote ---

Or what about a diver in the tank doing maintenance or the fish feeding.
Ian.M:
All the shots I've seen so far show the inner tube is still intact.  However its probably compromised as its most likely been exposed to the same chemicals the outer shell, and experienced the rapid removal of the inwards stress and a transient outwards pressure differential of up to one atmosphere over much of its length as the water fell out.

Got any photos (or video + timestamp) showing significant damage to the inner tube? 
AndyBeez:
The sheets were bonded in 2003. Did they ultrasound the material and the bond lines for micro fractures - as you need to do on an aircraft wing/body?

So does anyone have access to a mechanical stress simulation package? Would be interesting to calculate the loading at the base of the inner and outer cyclinders; especially as they held 1000 tonne of water. The surface loading at the base would have been similar to that experienced by a nuclear submarine or an orbiting space capsule. And we don't make those from plexiglass. Other factors to model; temperature cycling, vibration from the lift, air pressure on the top surface... even ultraviolet and chemical ageing of the material.

An fine example of, if engineers can, then maybe they shouldn't. Fail. :palm:

tom66:
You can see parts of the inner tube failed here, at least it appears to be part of that area:



I'm not sure how much of the tube is damaged.  It could have occurred post-collapse when the rest of the structure fell in towards it, perhaps.
tooki:
I saw one interviewee on a German news segment who suspected it was not fatigue, but mechanical damage. I assume the German authorities, the tank manufacturer, and all the involved insurance companies will be performing extensive analysis on the failure, so I expect we will eventually find out exactly what went wrong.
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