Subject:
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Re: New Civil Engineer - Lego vs Meccano debate
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.uk, lugnet.mediawatch
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Date:
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Mon, 30 Jul 2001 12:44:12 GMT
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Viewed:
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1037 times
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The article:
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Ensuring the gear ratio is correct
Construction News 17/05/2001
Page: 22 23
Record Number: 53996
THE 35 m-high Falkirk Wheel will allow boats to enter one of two 30-m long
double-walled gondolas from either a short aqueduct off the Union Canal or a
large circular basin linked to the Forth & Clyde 25 m beneath.
Each 150 tonnes gondola is supported at its ends by a 35 mlong curved arm,
which turn about a 3.8 m diameter axle.
A set of 10 hydraulic motors, housed in the axle's fixed end bearing, rotate
the shiplift through 180 degrees. This is the only motive power needed, as
the rotating arms also indirectly turn the gondolas to ensure they always
remain horizontal.
A series of cogs and gears - positioned between the circular rim in the arm
housing the gondola, and a fixed gearing ring on the aqueduct wall - rotate
the boat-filled caissons at the same speed as the wheel turns.
This simple yet innovative mechanism was devised by the tendering team's
architect RMJM, whose partner Tony Kettle arrived at a brainstorming meeting
clutching a model of the mechanism made from his son's Lego.
"It was a brilliant idea, " Butterley Engineering's Colin Castledine, a
civil engineer, admits grudgingly, before adding with a wry smile."But the
gear ratios on his model were all wrong and the gondolas would have turned
over."
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