I love following Elon how so many reasons. Understanding tech like this is just one. Surely the holy grail is: No overlap Curves are surely easy enough given the relative scale Zero inspection / removal of weld material Pump concrete ~1 foot behind weld Weld brackets directly Reduction in cost of TBM by removing the concrete sections should be so significant that the speed becomes less important
Yeah, he and the team come up with some cool solutions. If they don't overlap, the only way to curve is to cut, stretch, or gap the section. Depending on the material width, gap adjustment limits the curve radius. Same sort of thing as bending tubing, it likes to buckle. The shield is large to begin with, at least one concrete segment section for normal TBM, two sections for place while digging ones. Overlaping weld might make sealing it a little trickier, but that could be within the variance it already deals with. Upsides are: Better sealing, no need for adhesives. Eliminating the area needed for section casting. More use of lower strength concrete for grout. Allows reuse of tailings. Potentially larger interior diameter for the same hole size. Potential issues: Cross drilling for on/off ramps or service tunnels.
Just watched recent Elon presentation on Boring Company. I'm actually most interested in use for cars which wasn't discussed much. I like the concept of self driving cars navigating between white lines. Top speeds would probably be less than 100mph? Adding a tail wind artificially would of course help immensely. Otherwise cars might be loaded on some kind of railcar? Precise location of vehicles would be crucial assuming multiple cars in tube at once. Unless tight follow scenario used to minimize air drag is used? Vehicles would leave in groups then. Current Tesla's could be programmed with this feature easily. I'm pretty confident these tubes won't be for running ICE cars. Great complement to further promote EVs? Sounds like they will be focusing on pedestrian transport first however. Very excited to see how this technology evolves!!
I can wait to see the Tesla Pickup Truck presentation. I imagine than the platform could be used to build some type of van to carry passengers inside the Boring tunnels.
You can't find it because there is no such thing. Elon was trying to come up with off-the-cuff references to classical structures and simply conflated The Pantheon in Rome with Egypt. BTW, The Pantheon was so well engineered and the quality of its concrete so good, that it still stands in excellent condition after almost 2000 years. By contrast, modern reinforced concrete structures crumble away in a century or so.
One of his better videos - great for newbies. First half discusses SpaceX and Tesla innovation and how Boring Co will be faster.
As discussed by Will here, key improvement is ability to start boring from the surface. This is not easy but comes with many benefits. Cost, removal of muck from surface, time etc.
Comments are sometimes more interesting than the original post. One commenter suggested Tesla will build a "Digafactory" producing 1000 Prufrocks per week. 50,000 TBMs per year. That's a lot of tunnels!
I think Will is reading too much into that photo. You can see the lift points are still attached to the machine meaning it is not actually going to be sent underground at that point. Further, the machine is missing all the other sections it needs to operate. I think that is just a test setup for the digging head. Intermediate nodes would still be vertical shafts. The Vegas drill and fill concrete side columns allows for quick setup of start/ end holes. The muck removal can still be done using gantry cranes at access points and the level tunnel reduces the power the muck carts require. Not to say they couldn't slant launch it, but that results in a lot of shallow depth tunnel that needs to be clear of obstacles.
Las Vegas going from 3 underground stations to 1. Steep ramps make it possible. Boring Co. focussing on their core product. Love it.
New project in the early planning stage: 2.8 mile loop from Ontario International Airport (California) to Rancho Cucamonga. Tesla Working On 12 Person Vans For The Boring Company | CleanTechnica
Live Webcam | Multivista Construction Documentation Trucks bringing in dirt from somewhere. Going to be used to make Boring bricks?
Somewhat OT but transportation related... One of the companies working on the German Gigafactory is a large German conglomerate called Max Bogl. I happen to have a web page open where the company was mentioned concerning a delivery of a new kind of urban maglev to a Chinese city for a demonstration project: Maglev flies from Germany to China Haven't been hearing much about Maglev recently. Apparently the difference with this new approach is that it is much lighter, slower (90mph max), easier to construct, and most of all much cheaper than say the German Transrapid. Better turning radius, and uses modular track sections tha can be built in a factory and shipped to the construction site: TSB demonstration line in China - Max Bögl Couple videos of a test track and a discussion with the developer shown here: These kinds of systems work great but obviously don't have nearly the flexibility of a TBC system. The more I look at the way that the Vegas system is being implemented, the more I like it. Especially when you can put a station above ground literally right next to a casino entrance, then have the "pod" on tires navigate through a parking lot a short distance to where the tunnel dives underground to separate from the local traffic. Then you end up right where you want to be on the destination end. I could see every casino in Vegas having a TBC station. If they can get the tunneling cost down to a reasonable level, seems like thats the key.
Elon Musk's Boring Company launches a tunnel competition involving 'Tesla remote-controlled car' - Electrek
Could a TBM successfully tunnel through another tunnel at right angles? if so, this techniques could be used to easily create living and storage space on Mars.
