User talk:Joep/MudCurtain

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A sand bag the size of a cement bag weighs 100 lbs. Any potato chip bag with 100 lbs in it will bust open when a wave pushes it into another one if not before. Vincecate 22:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'm not too sure about real tubes myself. It would still work if the tubes consisted of little bags, though (but the construction would be a bit more expensive). It's not exactly science, but a small child can't open a bag of chips because sealing is quite strong and heavy stuff like cement is sold in much weaker material (like paper) which still holds. And a wave is not a car crashing into the "curtain", it's an extremely powerful but gentle force. This is something that needs experimenting I guess. I'll add your comments, thanks! Joep 23:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Something I have learned from talking to professional offshore engineers is that amateur analysis of hydrodynamics is often wrong. You need to think about things like resonance and vibration which are much more complicated than thinking about what happens when a single wave hits. Much analysis is done in non-time domains (like the frequency domain). Any large massive structure will block the waves, and I don't know why this one is particularly good. Certainly it is best if we can get our large rigid mass as cheaply as possible, but I don't know that sand or mud are that much cheaper than concrete. Concrete is just made of rocks, which are quite cheap per unit weight. Patri 00:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The idea is that it's a lot easier to make tubes or bags than to create big structures made of concrete and adding flotation to it afterwards. I won't deny being an amateur and I do have ideas that are plain stupid, of course. I'm just wondering if this is one of those. Joep 00:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)