121–130 of 265 posts
From an engineering perspective these sorts of acrylic tanks are a nightmare to ensure they are safe. The seams are impossible to inspect rigorously so the only real way of checking that they are safe is to load them with an excess pressure ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_test ). This can't be done with a tank of this size so the engineers can only real fall back on giving the tank excessive safety margin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you expect the forces acting on the glass to be ill-distributed if the enclosure were tilted slightly? Water pressure acts hydrostatically. The enclosure appears to have a circular cross section. As long as the tilt is not severe there is no reason to believe anything other than tensile hoop stresses due to equal circumferential loading will develop.
The normal force of the tank wall to the floor will shear across the acrylic if it's not perfectly flat. Pressure outwards is normal to the tank wall relative to the water, but if this force goes diagonally through the floor, that's bad.
According to a german news report [1], it could be due to material fatigue. [1] https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2022/12/berlin-karl-li...
If it's due to material fatigue it's due to engineering failure. That in turn may or may not be due to the yes-men promotion mechanism.
How come there's no footage?
From an engineering perspective these sorts of acrylic tanks are a nightmare to ensure they are safe. The seams are impossible to inspect rigorously so the only real way of checking that they are safe is to load them with an excess pressure ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_test ). This can't be done with a tank of this size so the engineers can only real fall back on giving the tank excessive safety margin…
Wow, how do you make pieces of glass that size?
It was manufactured in 2004 by a US company, "International Concept Management": https://icm-corp.com/ (side note: what a weird name for an aquarium manufacturing and design company)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The normal force of the tank wall to the floor will shear across the acrylic if it's not perfectly flat. Pressure outwards is normal to the tank wall relative to the water, but if this force goes diagonally through the floor, that's bad.
If the tank burst due to it shearing off of its base then it is not the glass that has the problem; it’s the connection to the base. This might sound pedantic but the OP said the forces on the GLASS were ill-distributed. The most important part of after the fact disaster analysis from an engineering context is being excruciatingly specific about the performance of structural elements.
To be excruciatingly specific.
That's a real shame only a few fish survived. It's fortunate only two people hurt. That looks nasty from the picture. Maybe next time less brittle acrylic. Off the top of my head a 14 m high tower of water - there would have been approx 20 psi at the bottom of the tank.
[1] agrees with you at 19.9psi
[1] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/hydrostatic-pressure-wate...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the tank burst due to it shearing off of its base then it is not the glass that has the problem; it’s the connection to the base. This might sound pedantic but the OP said the forces on the GLASS were ill-distributed. The most important part of after the fact disaster analysis from an engineering context is being excruciatingly specific about the performance of structural elements.
If you wanted to be pedantic you would correct the statement because there is no glass. To be excruciatingly specific.