A bigger problem than ISIS: The Mosul Dam is failing

Post by nyolfen » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 5:29 AM UTC

verelo wrote: post #32

rsync wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Amazing read, much longer than I generally get hooked into." Please, please subscribe to the New Yorker in some fashion ... I personally subscribe to the kindle version which is a very useful and workable format. The New Yorker[1] regularly has very, very good long form articles that have deepened my understanding of what I consider to be very important issues. Off the top of my head, I can think of three such artic…

I often find when I do get lost in an article, it's common to be something from the New Yorker. The articles are very well written and often explore the story in a way that is factual and creative that I really enjoy. Reading "Precedent and Prologue" (Gore V's bush supreme court article) I got so interested in the judicial activism concept and ended up lost on Wikipedia for a few hours bouncing around related article…

Post by lobster_johnson » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 5:37 AM UTC

abduhl wrote: post #40

lobster_johnson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen those, but always assumed they were driving steel beams into the earth. I'm surprised that concrete can be manhandled that way without being smashed into pieces.

Driving concrete piling has generally been abandoned in USA/Canada/Western Europe due to the propensity of concrete to crack in tension during pile driving operations. Driven pile is typically steel now in most construction you will see unless you live in a place where concrete is extremely cheap compared to steel.

Post by snowwindwaves » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 5:50 AM UTC

subway wrote: post #5

chris_7 wrote: post #3

> Kurdish officials intended to shut down the turbines, but American officials told them that this would add more water to the reservoir, making the dam more likely to burst. So isis continued to profit from the dam. “We wanted to strangle them, but we weren’t allowed,” a Kurdish official told me. Not that destroying infrastructure and killing the power to a city of civilians, despite ISIS control, is necessarily a g…

Probably lack of sufficient dump load.

Post by grzm » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 5:51 AM UTC

sporkenfang wrote: post #44

impostervt wrote: post #14

Dexter Filkins, the writer of this piece, is also the author of one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read - The Forever War (not the space war book). The Forever War https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307279448/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_OWDy...

Does the author typically write in such a narrative form? I had a hard time finishing this piece and normally very much enjoy descriptive writing. Perhaps it could have been more succinct.

Post by quickben » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 5:59 AM UTC

abduhl wrote: post #39

21 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know, I guess it depends on the depth, for small buildings you just hammer the concrete pillar in - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkXTLAxGKxA I'm surprised you never witnessed it, I've seen this at least 3-4 times. Probably because nowadays constructions sites have big opaque fences around them.

This is not grouting. This is driving concrete piles. Grouting refers to multiple things when talking about foundations or underground work but here are some examples: Jet grouting - high pressure water/grout/air is used to displace and mix the soil and grout to make a soilcrete Compensation grouting - grout is injected under pressure into the soil in order to displace/heave the ground to counteract previous settleme…