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Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article refers to the aquarium as glass throughout it.
The material used is plexiglass, aka acrylic, a type of clear plastic. Actual glass is probably too brittle or expensive. People use "glass" to mean the clear part of a window, not the actual material, in this context.
A trade name.
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A tropical aquarium is keep at the same temperature. Unless somebody would disconnect it to save energy or the termostat[s] would fall, shouldn't have experienced a lot of changes in their volume by this.
It’s unlikely a structure this size has a temperature uniform enough consistently over time to avoid thermal fatigue.
The event does not seemed truly random to me. If it was, the probability of breaking in the 90% of the time when there was people around would be much higher than breaking in the 10% small time interval without people. Extreme luck is rare. Looking for an external trigger seems appropriate
But the only surface really accessible to people was the escalator, and now we know that it didn't broke. The outer surface is mounted over the escalator door, can't be scratched purposely without taking a lot of troubles. Can't be shoot without leaving evident marks of a crime
If we assume that the thermostat didn't broke and that material fatigue is not an optimum explanation (it was checked and maintained in 2020), then temperature differences seem a good candidate. It broke in winter, in the hour where day/night differences should be maximum. The outer temperatures that night were -10C if I'm not wrong.
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Hum, A graph of the aquarium water temperatures by time would be interesting to examine...
The aquarium was likely very constant (otherwise the fish would die, they tend to be extremely sensitive to variations, especially rate of change), but the surrounding air likely was not.
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They'll start on the report after they finish mopping 1000 m^3 of water i guess. This is more interesting than the "look what I cloned in Rust" posts at the least.
What exactly have we learned that’s valuable from this news?
A lot. It depends on your personal preferences.
If you, as me, are interested in building aquariums and, as me, has watched with disbelief a couple of thick glass panes becoming arches by just 50cm of water, the system built and the planning put on it should be awesome enough. This tank worked for 20 years than is more than most hardware.
If you (as many people here) are interested in space and Mars colonization, you need seriously consider learning the art of keeping fishes in huge tanks. Aquaculture skills will be vital to keep a colony out of the earth.
To start, is one of the better methods known to produce quality food fast to keep your people feed. Some fishes are particularly well suited for space travel, and can even travel safely dehydrated in a paper envelope.
Even more important, tanks with aquatic organisms will be basic to recycle the residues in your small city. Water will be precious stuff and higher tanks allow a much better evaporation control.
You don't want one million litters flood happening in your spatial base so there is a big lesson here for us to learn
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What's the best material for a tank like this, if not acrylic? Normal glass? Not educated on this subject.
Ideally it would be extruded diamond, but that technology will not be available until early in the 26th century. Second would be clear aluminum, but again that will not be available for another 150 years.
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Is there no way to detect cracks or is it just prohibitively expensive to do so? I know that metal fatigue is a known thing that airlines check for and when they went to carbon fiber they had to develop tools to detect fatigue/cracks.
Acrylic and water have virtually the same index of refraction, so if the crack forms on the wet side of the wall and wicks in water you will not detect it visually. It forms the basis of some magic tricks involving walking on or supporting things in water. (I say some, the rest are totally magic and you should enjoy them.)
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I guess you could transport it at immense cost. But you'd also need a machine capable of moulding or extruding it this big. Current maximum for plastic pipes is about 3.5m diameter https://www.agru.at/en/applications/agruline/grand-opening-r... so you'd need something which is capable of more than 3 times the diameter.
Could one pour liquid acrylic into a mold (like with a concrete foundation), rather than extruding it?
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…
What's the best material for a tank like this, if not acrylic? Normal glass? Not educated on this subject.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally it would be extruded diamond, but that technology will not be available until early in the 26th century. Second would be clear aluminum, but again that will not be available for another 150 years.
We have clear aluminium already in the form of sapphire glass (Al₂O₃). Presumably you're referring to a means of manufacturing it at a scale suitable for, say, an aquarium?