
At one time
stereotyped thinking helped mankind survive: thanks to it kernels of acquired
knowledge could take hold and be passed down from generation to generation. At
the dawn of human civilization this was crucial. However, now stereotyped ways
of thinking are considered one of the greatest bars to progress, and for good
reason: creating something radically new is only possible if we look beyond our
everyday conceptions.
Today we will try
to destroy a few of these stereotypes by taking a look at extraordinary uses
for ordinary materials.
Mankind made the
first ships from wood, which is to be expected: wood doesn’t sink in water and
is easily manipulated. Later steel was used. This was a major step forward,
since steel is a material that is significantly heavier than water. But can you
imagine a ship made completely from concrete? The very phrase “concrete ship”
is enough to make one smile, and immediately conjures up images of sinking
sterns. Nevertheless, concrete ships were constructed for a fairly long time,
and successfully carried out the tasks entrusted to them.
A boat made of
cement applied to a rebar frame was first constructed by the Frenchman
Joseph-Louis Lambot in 1848 – which was, curiously, 19 years before another
Frenchman, Joseph Monier, received a patent for reinforced concrete. Lambot’s
boat caused a sensation when it was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in
Paris in 1855. Three boats, one of which remained in service for nearly fifty
years, were built to Lambot’s patented design. Later on a small number of
similar concrete boats and sailing yachts were built in Europe and America.
This type of
transport became widely used thanks to Norwegian engineer Nicolay Fougner, who
in 1917 built a self-propelled sea-going ship from reinforced concrete. The
Americans followed Fougner’s example, and built a similar cargo steamer. These
ships proved to be more durable than those made from wood or metal. Winter’s
ice posed them no threat, and it was much easier to patch holes in their
hulls. Significantly, workers with no
knowledge of shipbuilding could be used to construct and repair these concrete
ships.
No special qualifications were needed to build concrete ships. The most ordinary of builders could make and repair them.
During the First
World War American president Woodrow Wilson approved the construction of 24
ships made from reinforced concrete. However, by the end of the war only 12 of
the ships, worth a total of 50 million dollars, had been completed. Concrete
ships built in the early 20th century were mainly used as oil tankers, but they
also performed well as transports of dry materials such as sugar, since they
were not subject to condensation, from which steel ships suffer. The length of
concrete ships ranged from 125 to 132 meters, and they weighed from 3700 to
4200 metric tons. Their average length of service, however, was short – five to
ten years. This was due to the fact that in serious collisions they suffered
serious damages, often sinking right away.
The cargo ship Cape Fear, launched in 1919, collided with another vessel
in 1920 and reportedly sank beneath the waves with its 19-member crew in less
than three minutes. If a damaged ship did not sink, repair was often deemed
pointless, and it was simply written off. The concrete San Pasqual, on the
other hand, is still afloat as a cozy hotel in Cuba. Built in 1920, it was
initially used as an oil tanker, then as a store ship, then as a lookout for
German submarines during World War II. During the Cuban Revolution Che Guevara
used the vessel as a prison. Later it housed sporting and fishing clubs.
During World War II
concrete shipbuilding gained new momentum. The USA’s steel shortage led to the
appearance of 24 concrete ships and 80 concrete barges. Vessels of this new
generation were lighter and sturdier than their predecessors. They were built
at a very rapid pace – a ship a month. The ships were intended for short-term
use, the expectation being that many would be destroyed by German submarines.
Two of the ships were sunk as barriers during the Allied landings at Normandy.
The SS Atlantus is one of the most famous concrete ships. Built by the Americans during a period of emergency preparation for the First World War, it became the world’s second concrete ship.
After finishing its
term of service, the S.S. Atlаntus became a draw for divers. When a person died after diving from the
ship, a warning sign was put up on shore.
Later the ship split in two.
Nevertheless, many
of the ships built during that time have survived. Seven of them are still
afloat in Powell River, British Columbia, where they constitute an enormous
breakwater. Another ship to survive the war, the Quartz, is famous for its
participation in Operation Crossroads, the American atomic bomb tests conducted
in 1946. A group of several ships that included the Quartz was placed at the
center of the blast to measure the degree of damage inflicted by a nuclear
detonation.
The barge Quartz took part in some of the first atomic bombing tests – in 1946 it was placed at the center of a nuclear blast.
During the years of
the Second World War steel was also in short supply in the Soviet Union, where
specialists also made ships from concrete. One example of a well-preserved
concrete ship can be seen in the port of Riga – the Voleri. The ship is still
afloat and its external appearance has changed very little, although it now
lacks a deckhouse. Concrete ships can also be found in Russia: in Vyborg there
is a concrete launch on the shore, not far from the castle; two German concrete
barges are laid up on the shore of the bay in the town of Mamonovo in
Kaliningrad Oblast; another concrete ship has been preserved on the Luga River
– it is most likely a German lighter of 1920s design. The Nizhniy Novgorod
yacht club uses a concrete motor sailing yacht, the Nefertiti, built in the
early 1970s, currently the only preserved concrete sailing ship in the Volga
River basin. The yacht accommodates up to 16 people, has a displacement of 11
metric tonnes, and a length of 12.5 meters, which allows her to take long
voyages.
After 1920 the S.S. Sapona served as a cargo ship. In 1926 the ship was caught in a storm and suffered such severe damage that its owners did not bother repairing her.
After World War II
concrete began to be used in shipbuilding mainly for floating oil reservoirs,
as well as to create drilling platforms and floating piers. For example, in
1975 a concrete LNG tanker with a cargo capacity of 60,000 tonnes was
constructed. It is still in service on the Java Sea.
Over time
experience in concrete ship construction showed that building with concrete
made more economic sense with certain types of ship. These were mostly harbor
utility vessels: ferries, lighters,
scows, flat-bottomed boats, and various types of barges. Whereas ships of metal
construction are subject to rust and require constant care, concrete ships for
all practical purposes do not deteriorate over time and require less repair
work. In addition, concrete ships can be built cheaper and faster, while their
sturdiness is comparable to that of steel-construction ships. Using concrete to
build ships that are in constant motion, however, is not profitable today.
Concrete vessels are heavier than steel ones, so providing a cargo capacity
comparable to that of steel ships requires greater dimensions, which leads to
increased towing resistance (requiring more powerful engines) and makes their
use on small waterways more difficult – among other things, it makes moving
them through canals and canal locks impossible. But the fact remains the same:
using concrete to build ships is certainly possible.
One of the few concrete ships still extant. Voleri at a berth in the port of Riga.
And now we turn our
attention to medieval China, where we find the workshop of Shang Suiding, who
is working on new armor for the Chinese army. Do you think he’ll use the
conventional material – metal?
Of course not.
Shang Suiding is considered the inventor of paper armor. The book Tang Shu Xu
Shang Zhuang relates how for the Battle of Huotong General Xi Shang from
Shaanxi province ordered that thousands of his soldiers be clad in paper armor.
Soon paper armor was officially recognized as a cheap and practical form
of defense. In 1040 roughly thirty thousand sets of paper armor were prepared
for troops who stopped in the cities of Guangnang and Huinang (in Anguo
province), famed for their paper industry. The protection offered by this armor
was so great that they withstood blows from swords and spears, while arrows,
even powerful ones, could not pierce it. By many criteria they were even better
than leather or metal armor, and were valued more highly. We know that in the
12th century judge Chen De-Xiu asked the central authorities to exchange 100
sets of metal armor for 50 sets of armor from the finest paper. During the Ming
dynasty this type of armor was worn by garrisons defending the shores of
southern China from Japanese invasions.
The Chinese and Japanese especially valued paper armor made in Korea
for its strength and durability. The ancient Koreans used ten or fifteen layers
of specially sewn- and glued-together papers made from mulberry trees (gabuiji)
to make their armor, called jigab. To increase its strength, the sap of the
Chinese lacquer tree was applied to layers of gabuiji horizontally, vertically,
and diagonally. The gabuiji were then dried in the sun. In Dongguk Yeoji
Seungram (“Survey of the National Geography of Korea”), written in the 15th
century, it was noted that gabuiji paper armor protected warriors from arrows
and was no weaker than iron. There are accounts of such armor even withstanding
musket balls.
Even in our day researchers have compared paper armor with that made
from steel. It turned out that the ancient sources weren’t lying. While only
half the weight of iron armor, paper armor for all practical purposes matched
its protective qualities. Steel had an advantage only against firearms made
after the early 19th century.
Our next example of creative use of materials is a triumph of Soviet
engineering. What is usually used as a coolant? Air, water, Freon, oil, or
something along those lines. But how about using molten lead?
Nuclear power plants with liquid metal coolant were a uniquely
Soviet technical solution, used nowhere else in the world. Fast-neutron
reactors with sodium and mercury coolant were developed for atomic power
plants. Soviet engineers created nuclear power plants with sodium-potassium
coolant for spacecraft. Bismuth lead was used as coolant for the reactors of
the nuclear-powered submarines of Proekt 705, given the Soviet codename Lira
(Russian for “lyre”) and known by the NATO designation Alfa. The concept for
Proekt 705 formed in the late 1950s. The designers were given the task of
creating a compact, highly maneuverable “underwater interceptor” with an
incredible underwater speed of over 40 knots (approx. 80 kilometers/hour). A
special decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union to the head designer, Mikhail Rusanov, allowed him to violate the existing
standards and rules of shipbuilding while designing the submarine.
To satisfy the demands of the client, it was first of all necessary
to create a very powerful but compact power supply. A fast-neutron reactor with
molten metal coolant was chosen because it was safer, offered a greater
power-to-weight ratio, and was more compact than a water-to-water reactor. The
fast-neutron reactor reduced the submarine’s displacement by 300 metric tons.
The use of molten metal as a coolant meant the primary coolant system could be
kept at low pressure, which made a thermal explosion of the nuclear reactor and
the external emission of radiation impossible, as well as enabling the power
plant to be quickly put on full power. Thanks
to this feature Alfa-class submarines could reach top speed in less than a
minute. This high speed enabled the submarine to quickly enter the blind spot
of any submarine or surface ship or escape pursuing enemies and even most
anti-submarine torpedoes. In only 42 seconds the submarine could turn 180° and
begin moving in the opposite direction.
The Alfa class’s power plant was ahead of its time by nearly half a
century. However, that also meant the submarine required special handling – the
reactor’s primary coolant circuit had to always be kept in a hot condition of
no less than 120° C. Otherwise the coolant would have solidified, and the
entire 155 megawatt power plant would have turned into a hulk of radioactive
metal. Over the project’s lifespan of over 20 years that happened twice, in both
cases due to accidents, but no one died and no submarines were lost.
The Alfa class was practically invulnerable to the weapons of the
time, which changed the way the Americans thought about the submarine fleet and
anti-submarine measures. The last of the class was retired from service in
1997. To this day the Alfa class remains the only serially-produced submarine
with liquid metal reactor coolant. Only one another submarine, also of Soviet
design, attained a higher speed – the second-generation nuclear submarine K-162
(renamed the K-222 in 1978, also known as the sole ship in the Papa-class, its
NATO reporting name.)
In conclusion, a few words on fuel. Surprisingly, many specialists
say that the fuel of the future might be something we’re used to thinking of as
a construction material – aluminum. Can you imagine? You throw a few empty
Coca-Cola cans into the tank of your car and it runs on that! The prototypes of
such cars and the necessary engines have already been developed.
In 2011 Aleix Llovet and Xavier Salueña from the Polytechnic
University of Catalonia created a radio-controlled model car that runs on drink
can tabs. The tabs are put in the “fuel tank” – a container with water and
sodium hydroxide. In an aqueous solution of caustic alkali the aluminum
dissolves, producing hydrogen. The gas produced goes through filters installed
in the car: first through a filter with vinegar and water to remove sodium
hydroxide traces, and then through a silica gel, which removes the water. The
purified hydrogen enters the fuel cell, producing a current. The alkali that
builds up in the filter is once again sent into the system, where it is reused.
The system’s exhaust consists of two completely non-toxic substances – aluminum
hydroxide, which can be easily transformed into aluminum oxide, and a residue
of sodium acetate in the vinegar filter. Sodium acetate is widely used as a
preservative, and the aluminum oxide can be used to produce pure aluminum. The Israeli company Alchemy Research has even
created a reactor that runs on aluminum powder. In the reactor, aluminum heated
to 900° Celsius reacts with water to form hydrogen and aluminum oxide. The
hydrogen produced can be used as fuel for fuel cells; the heat is used to keep
the temperature in the reactor high, and waste in the form of aluminum oxide
can be reprocessed into aluminum.
Calculations suggest that an automobile with such a reactor and a fuel
tank the size of a conventional gas tank could travel approximately 2,400
kilometers, with refueling taking only a few minutes.
Russian researchers from the Unified Institute of High Temperatures
at the Russian Academy of Sciences have also joined in, turning an American
Gem-car EL electric golfcart into an aluminum-powered vehicle. Here small
aluminum discs, which are loaded into special cassettes, are used as fuel. A
special pump forces a caustic alkali through these cassettes, generating
electricity and heat. The heat can be used to heat the passenger compartment,
and the electricity goes to charge the Li-ion batteries that power the engine.
One fuelling includes 44 aluminum discs, which weigh four kilograms, providing
enough fuel to travel 380 kilometers in the city. After the aluminum discs are
exhausted, the vehicle has to be refueled and the electrolytes replenished in
the battery. Later 90% of the aluminum can be restored from the waste
electrolytes. Taking into account the cost of aluminum (about two dollars per
kilogram) and alkali, the cost of a trip in a vehicle like this is
approximately one ruble [roughly 3 American cents at the time of writing –
translator’s note] per kilometer in the city, which is even less than with
gasoline.