Author Topic: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?  (Read 12323 times)

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Offline tooki

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #50 on: December 19, 2022, 07:48:11 am »
My guess is that some cleaning company used an alcohol based cleaning agent.
Or some diligent person desinfected EVERY surface.

The fumes of disinfectant could also added to the disaster to.
I think we can safely rule that out, since it was completely out of reach, and there’s no way they’d leave cleaning up to a regular maid service even if it had been in reach.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #51 on: December 19, 2022, 07:55:07 am »
More speculation. There was a large bar and café in that lobby, right beneath the aquarium. People were meant to sit there, eat and drink and be comfortable. Rest assured that it was not at 15°C.

The level of uninformed speculation in this thread is particularly bad. Why not use at least the publicly available information?
I’ve seen discussions elsewhere where people are claiming the atrium was barely heated above ambient, and that the “uninsulated”* glass roof would have led to the air at the top being colder than at the bottom…  :palm: :-DD

* more speculation by someone who apparently is unaware of the existence of double- and triple-glazed insulated windows.

I looked at the hotel website. There is — well, was — a bar in the atrium. I agree with you: absolutely no chance that space was not heated to indoor temperatures.

Besides, I’d think that the requirement for the water to be kept at its stable 26°C would have largely negated any advantage to heating the air less. They’d just have to put more energy into the water to stop it from cooling off too much.
 

Offline AndyC_772

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #52 on: December 19, 2022, 09:11:02 am »
I think we can safely rule that out, since it was completely out of reach, and there’s no way they’d leave cleaning up to a regular maid service even if it had been in reach.

I'm not so sure about that. During Covid, anything and everything got liberally sprayed with whatever product was to hand that said "anti-viral" on the label, and this was seen as a Good Thing (TM).

Online tom66Topic starter

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #53 on: December 19, 2022, 09:24:22 am »
It is possible that the bar was using infrared heating to reduce costs, whilst the air was kept colder.  But it does seem a bit odd for a 'premium' location to do that.  But, after last orders, maybe they did reduce the air heating power to save money?

Regardless it's clearly a terrible design flaw if colder air could lead to the failure of these structures.  Heating systems fail sometimes!

Though I do agree keeping an aquaria at 26C year round is surely a significant consumer of energy, probably the biggest single consumer in the building.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #54 on: December 19, 2022, 10:41:40 am »
I think we can safely rule that out, since it was completely out of reach, and there’s no way they’d leave cleaning up to a regular maid service even if it had been in reach.

I'm not so sure about that. During Covid, anything and everything got liberally sprayed with whatever product was to hand that said "anti-viral" on the label, and this was seen as a Good Thing (TM).
No, definitely not! The aquarium was not within reach of anyone’s hands, other than the divers who fed the fish and took care of the enclosure, and they’d know damned well not to use anything improper on the aquarium. (Nor would they use any toxic chemicals, since many cleaners are toxic to marine life.)

My money is on the millions of kids who have passed through there putting chewing gum on the outside of the tank over the years. Also age as someone else put it.

The outside of the tank was over 8 meters of of the lobby floor, so no passing by to stick anything to it.

There is literally no need to disinfect a surface that has no contact with people.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #55 on: December 19, 2022, 10:51:07 am »
It is possible that the bar was using infrared heating to reduce costs, whilst the air was kept colder.  But it does seem a bit odd for a 'premium' location to do that.
Am I literally the only person on the entire internet who simply went and looked for photos of the damned atrium?!? Everyone is just speculating speculating speculating, when the photos make it crystal clear: it’s an indoor space. No radiant IR heaters, no half-outdoor environment, nope, just plain indoors.

https://www.domaquaree.de/en/See-and-Experience.html
https://www.radissonhotels.com/en-us/hotels/radisson-collection-berlin/restaurant-bar


But, after last orders, maybe they did reduce the air heating power to save money?
I doubt it would save any power anyway, since the huge thermal mass of the water column would stabilize the air temperature around it, and the water had to be maintained at a stable temperature.

Regardless it's clearly a terrible design flaw if colder air could lead to the failure of these structures.  Heating systems fail sometimes!
I haven’t seen any evidence that this explanation has any legitimacy whatsoever. Nobody really knows where it originated, but it wasn’t the result of an engineering analysis of the failure. My guess is that someone who walked into the lobby post-burst noticed that it’s cold inside, which it would be since all the doors to the outside were washed out, and started babbling.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2022, 11:06:39 am by tooki »
 
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Online Ian.M

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #56 on: December 19, 2022, 10:54:30 am »
With a big warm cylinder in the middle of the atrium, unless the whole space was actively conditioned to the tank temperature, there must have been a considerable convection effect in wintertime, with air round the tank rising, being chilled by the glass roof (even if it was fairly well insulated), and falling nearer the atrium walls, so it seems likely that there would have been a gradual build-up of urban particulates on the exterior of the tank.   It would have needed regular cleaning to maintain the aesthetic effect,  possibly at intervals of a few years or so, possibly more frequently.   I'd bet it was cleaned when the tank was drained for maintenance back in summer 2020.

- 2020 maintenance
« Last Edit: December 19, 2022, 11:04:43 am by Ian.M »
 

Online tom66Topic starter

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #57 on: December 19, 2022, 10:56:39 am »
It is possible that the bar was using infrared heating to reduce costs, whilst the air was kept colder.  But it does seem a bit odd for a 'premium' location to do that.
Am I literally the only person on the entire internet who simply went and looked for photos of the damned atrium?!? Everyone is just speculating speculating speculating, when the photos make it crystal clear: it’s an indoor space. No radiant IT heaters, no half-outdoor environment, nope, just plain indoors.

Apparently ;).  I didn't think to check the hotel website, I had assumed they would nuke everything whilst the hotel was still soaked in salt water.

OK, so it doesn't seem that temperature is a likely cause.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #58 on: December 19, 2022, 11:00:56 am »
This thread is good for months of idle speculation, until the insurance experts release their actual assessment of the fault. Has anyone looked into the position of the planets yet, or the effect of 5G networks?  :horse: 
 
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Offline jonovid

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #59 on: December 19, 2022, 11:03:24 am »
explosion - maybe after nord stream 2, it was something dropped into it.  accidents will happen like in a movie the Dam Busters :-X
Hobbyist with a basic knowledge of electronics
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #60 on: December 19, 2022, 11:06:07 am »
With a big warm cylinder in the middle of the atrium, there must have been a considerable convection effect in wintertime, with air round the tank rising, being chilled by the glass roof (even if it was fairly well insulated), so it seems likely that there would have been a gradual build-up of urban particulates on the exterior of the tank.   It would have needed regular cleaning to maintain the aesthetic effect,  possibly at intervals of a few years or so, possibly more frequently.   I'd bet it was cleaned when the tank was drained for maintenance back in summer 2020.

- 2020 maintenance
I’m sure it got cleaned regularly, but almost certainly was done by specialists. They wouldn’t have just had hotel cleaning staff do it. It’s possible the aquarium staff itself did it (in which case we’d be talking about people within a highly specialized, expert team), or specialized outsiders.

(People don’t realize there are specialty cleaning companies for any imaginable thing. For example, when I worked at the “fruit stand”, every few months we had a specialty company come in to clean all the stainless steel paneling. Other times, a different specialist company to deep-clean the sandstone floor. Both specialist companies, separate from the general facilities maintenance company that did the everyday cleaning.)
 

Online Ian.M

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #61 on: December 19, 2022, 11:16:57 am »
I agree.  It wouldn't make sense for the hotel or even the aquarium to keep a cleaning team trained for high rope access, even if you also used them for exterior window cleaning.  Contracting such occasional cleaning out to a specialist company would have been the only sane thing to do.

However even the specialists can get it wrong, e.g. if they *think* they are using an acrylic safe cleaner, but its actually a container of counterfeit cleaner with the wrong formula.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2022, 11:22:43 am by Ian.M »
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #62 on: December 19, 2022, 11:20:18 am »
I’m sure it got cleaned regularly, but almost certainly was done by specialists. They wouldn’t have just had hotel cleaning staff do it. It’s possible the aquarium staff itself did it (in which case we’d be talking about people within a highly specialized, expert team), or specialized outsiders.

While the AquaDom was located in a hotel lobby, and owned by the investment fund which owns the hotel building, it was operated by the Sea Life aquarium -- a large commercial aquarium located next door. They operate their own facility with many tanks there, so it is safe to assume that they employ full-time experts for all aspects of aquarium maintenance.
 

Online tom66Topic starter

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #63 on: December 19, 2022, 11:33:32 am »
With a big warm cylinder in the middle of the atrium, there must have been a considerable convection effect in wintertime, with air round the tank rising, being chilled by the glass roof (even if it was fairly well insulated), and falling nearer the atrium walls, so it seems likely that there would have been a gradual build-up of urban particulates on the exterior of the tank.   It would have needed regular cleaning to maintain the aesthetic effect,  possibly at intervals of a few years or so, possibly more frequently.   I'd bet it was cleaned when the tank was drained for maintenance back in summer 2020.

Interesting, the guy who was in the construction video was on site for the maintenance.  So presumably they had Reynolds Polymer involved.  You would expect that they would know what cleaning processes and adhesives to use!
 

Online themadhippy

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #64 on: December 19, 2022, 11:56:04 am »
regardless of how many specialists you employ mistakes still get made,
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #65 on: December 19, 2022, 12:01:17 pm »
While the AquaDom was located in a hotel lobby, and owned by the investment fund which owns the hotel building, it was operated by the Sea Life aquarium -- a large commercial aquarium located next door. They operate their own facility with many tanks there, so it is safe to assume that they employ full-time experts for all aspects of aquarium maintenance.
Incorrect:
Quote
Der AquaDom ist eine eigenständige Attraktion und ist nicht im Besitz des SEA LIFE Berlin, auch Wartung und Instandhaltung liegen nicht beim SEA LIFE Berlin.
Source: https://www.visitsealife.com/berlin/media/qk1lspla/pressemitteilung-sea-life-berlin.pdf (Also attached)

While this leaves open whether care for the animals was done by sealife, maintenance clearly is not.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2022, 12:07:51 pm by tooki »
 

Online tom66Topic starter

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #66 on: December 19, 2022, 12:11:52 pm »
Also worth a look (per a Wikipedia source): https://madisongroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Investigating_Acrylic_Aquarium_Failures.pdf

Curious that the failures seen so far are usually progressive though.  You might expect to see an empty AquaDom with a crack running through the middle of it, not one that appeared to fail explosively, so I wonder if the failure method is different to that shown on slides 18, 19 and 21. Those failures seem to be almost universally at the adhesive joint, rather than of the actual acrylic. (Does this mean they do not use a plastic welding process to bond the sheets permanently?  I know very little about acrylics to comment on whether this would be viable.)

Slide 20 shows a crack that was on a tank built by none other than Reynolds... (not sure who repaired it, but apparently that tank is fine now)
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2014/12/116_169594.html

Slide 27 is also quite interesting, I guess you really want to be approaching the 1010 side of the time curve for a product like this, for a long term installation with a life of around 50-100 years.  It did do over 19 years, or 6x108 seconds.  Maybe the warranty was 15 years.  ;D

Anyone care to calculate the stress on the walls of the AquaDom given the weight of water?

Side note - it's crazy to me that there's so much demand for over-sized aquariums that there are several companies in the US alone that specialise in making them.  I can't imagine how many they produce per year to make this viable, but it can't be a small number.
 
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Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #67 on: December 19, 2022, 12:17:58 pm »
The video about the maintenance showed redoing of the joints, and I guess that Reynolds Polymer was called in for that job. Even though special material, it won't last, just as normal silicone in your bathroom.

It looked like quite the undertaking that was carefully planed, and most likely also very costly.

One can only wonder how often the outside of the tank needed to be cleaned, but with a many million euro investment and possible liability on the line, I doubt they would cut corners and outsource it to some no good cheap ass cleaning company.

Think of the insurance claim if someone was killed by it and it turns out to be due to cutting corners.

Offline AndyBeez

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #68 on: December 19, 2022, 01:39:33 pm »
First rule of engineering fails ask, what has been changed? Countless times buildings and bridges have collapsed after maintenance, upgrade and improvement. I assumed the Aquadom had been in some steady state since it's construction. Nope, it was "modernized" in 2018/19, leaving a potential ticking time bomb: It's possible the update work used materials that were too rigid. The materials work fine in Florida, but this ain't the sub tropics.
 
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Offline ebastler

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #69 on: December 19, 2022, 02:38:55 pm »
Quote
Der AquaDom ist eine eigenständige Attraktion und ist nicht im Besitz des SEA LIFE Berlin, auch Wartung und Instandhaltung liegen nicht beim SEA LIFE Berlin.

While this leaves open whether care for the animals was done by sealife, maintenance clearly is not.

Thanks, tooki. It is not quite clear to me what is included in "Wartung und Instandhaltung": The major overhaul a couple of years ago would clearly be included in that term, and it makes sense that this was the responsibility of the owner rather than the operator. But daily maintenance like cleaning, which on the inside of the tank was apparently done by two divers employed full-time -- not sure whether that falls under "Wartung" or daily operation.

There is probably a bit of spin-doctoring going on with that press release too. The "separate attraction" was not all that separate, it seems: You always bought a single ticket for both, access to the AquaDom elevator and the other aquairiums at Sea Life. "It wasn't us!" is obviously the message here... 
 
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Offline Haenk

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #70 on: December 19, 2022, 03:02:08 pm »
I suspect cleaning, creating micro-scratches. Inside and outside. Acryl is not that tough and will scratch easily, even more so if being cleaned/wiped for many years.
 

Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #71 on: December 19, 2022, 03:21:23 pm »
     The first question I would ask is what did they mean by "modernize"?  And exactly what was done when they did?

    Given the amount of counterfeit materials (cleaners, adhesives, fasteners, etc) coming out of China and SE Asia today, I wouldn't be surprised to find that some of that was at fault.

     I talked to a friend of mine that used to do failure analysis for a US Gov military contractor about this incident and he told me that they had a big problem with people using a product call "Chloro-clean" and that it destroyed some plastics within days and also would creep in past the seals in diodes and other electronic devices and would destroy them as well.
 

Online tom66Topic starter

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #72 on: December 19, 2022, 03:30:21 pm »
I wonder if "modernize" is a poor translation.  I have heard other Europeans use that word when they mean "refurbish". As far as I know they didn't replace the actual panels themselves.  That would require the roof structure to be removed (at the very least) and would be extremely disruptive.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #73 on: December 19, 2022, 03:40:21 pm »
I wonder if "modernize" is a poor translation.  I have heard other Europeans use that word when they mean "refurbish". As far as I know they didn't replace the actual panels themselves.  That would require the roof structure to be removed (at the very least) and would be extremely disruptive.

Here's a short interview which describes the scope of the works - unfortunately German only: https://www.domaquaree.de/de/Modernisierung-AquaDom.html

It is indeed "refurbishment" rather than modernization: They removed the old silicone seals, polished and re-sealed the acrylic, and overhauled the elevator. The interview stresses a couple of times that there was a risk of the 20 cm thick acrylic drying out if it is no longer in contact with water from the inside, which could cause cracks. They applied adhesive foils films to the acrylic to avoid this.

(Edit: "Films" it is -- thanks tooki!)
« Last Edit: December 20, 2022, 07:48:19 am by ebastler »
 
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Offline iMo

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Re: Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
« Reply #74 on: December 19, 2022, 04:17:03 pm »
This kind of funny stuff like the AquaDom shall be designed and constructed such way that in case of a failure the water has the free way to escape without causing catastrophic damages or dead bodies. An assumption such that specific construction will last forever would be pretty naive one, imho..
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