General > General Technical Chat
Berlin AquaDom explosion - what went wrong?
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tom66:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-639969827
https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-massive-aquarium-home-to-1500-fish-bursts/a-64119337

It's no more.  Quite a feat of engineering.  For it to fail catastrophically, it seems like there must have been unseen damage.  What isn't clear to me is what parts are acrylic and what are glass.  The news report talks of people injured by flying glass but the construction was mostly plexiglass according to the 'net, though I suppose in the confusion being cut up by exploding plastic is probably more or less the same. 

What might cause such a catastrophic failure?  I could see the tank leaking but for it to explode like that suggests some catastrophic stress failure. 

Also, the poor fish.   I hope there were no endangered species there.
Twoflower:
There is, or better was, enough glass in the area around the aquarium that would have caused such injuries.

I just read that an earthquake station 15km away from the Hotel recorded the event as an earthquake with a magnitude of 1.2 (https://mastodon.social/@erdbebennews)  :wtf:
rdl:
I doubt it "exploded" that sounds like the media just getting a bit carried away. Catastrophic failure I could believe. All that moving water probably blew out the hotel windows causing the glass shards. It's a crazy thing to happen no matter what.
Twoflower:
I totally agree, Ii don‘t think that it was an explosion. The effect looks like one. But with that amount of water that‘s no surprise.
Ian.M:
It wasn't a bomb, it was a time bomb!

Acrylic plastics are notorious for stress cracking and poor chemical compatibility, and its generally inadvisable to use them under significant tension.  Simply drilling a hole near the edge of a sheet of acrylic with the wrong (or no) coolant can create micro-cracks that will grow under stress till critical failure.   Using  the wrong sealant, failing to deburr a hole so there's point loading on the hole to surface corner, or simply overtightening a fastener can also start it cracking.

As the outer wall at the base was carrying a hoop stress of approx 620 KN per meter height and (presumably for aesthetic reasons), it didn't have any tensioned reinforcing bands supporting it, all it would take is one tiny mistake assembling it, maintaining it or cleaning it, and future failure became inevitable.  It could have been as simple as using the wrong cleaning spray on its exterior!
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