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A Pipeline, An Earthquake, No Problem
polarfleece writes "November 3 is the first anniversary of the Denali Fault Earthquake that rocked Interior Alaska. America's greatest engineering marvel, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline just happens to cross the Denali Fault and, as described in Dan Joling's AP story "Alyeska engineers anticipated the effects of a bruising quake" the line came through just fine."
Let's get jumping. We need the oil.The technology for safe and sane extraction is proven. A pipeline, an earthquake -- No problem! Glad to see this stuff works the way it should.
The article is very interesting, but I'd hardly call an earthquake resistant stinky oil pipe America's greatest engineering marvel...
Anyone remember Apollo? Or the space shuttle? Or do these count as technology? I'm sure plenty of "engineers" worked on the space shuttle and plenty of "scientists" worked on fault-resistant oil pipelines.
But as the article says: Though there was minimal damage, the earthquake may have one potentially expensive effect: the pipeline is now out of compliance with original design criteria that require it to be able to survive 20 feet of horizontal motion.
Perhaps next time they will specify 20 feet as the safety requirement, but build to allow 40 feet, so that they do not have to rebuild after every landslip.
IMO, that's not the greatest engineering feat associated with the pipeline.
I'd reserve that honor for the resilience of the pipeline to a much slower amplitude shaking.
Namely, frost heaves from permafrost, ground that is normally frozen year-round. Scrape off a little ground cover to build a house, a road, or plant a utility pole and suddenly there's a difference freeze/thaw cycle that will do real Bad Things.
You have to either keep all frozen all the time, or largely unfrozen and fairly dry soil.
There's a reason that roads have 6 ft of gravel on them for insulation to protect the underlying permafrost.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
On the note of permafrost, the pipeline (when it is above ground anyways) has heat pipes attached to it, that, for lack of a better word, suck the heat out of the ground, keeping the permafrost nice a frozen. Check out Alyeska Pipeline's page on pipeline facts for details.
On another note, while the pipeline might not be the engineering marvel some would expect, consider it's roughly 800 miles long, above ground, below ground, below ground and refigerated, and built back in the 70's. This thing puts up with a lot. And you can't quite tell from most pictures, but the thing is huge. Most sections that are above ground are designed to let animals pass right under without noticing it.
Of course the big benift of the pipeline has to be the money involved. It brought a whole bunch of people up to Alaska to work on the pipeline and still (if I remember correctly) oil is the number one source of income. Most of my friends growing up either worked for the state, or the oil companies. (or contracted for both) Makes for a very interesting time when oil prices drop and the oil companies start letting people go. Not the funnest times around.
But that's my rant, I've been out of the state for the better part of four years anyhow.
Perhaps they meant: "In places, the fault could move 30 feet, but the average movement over the entire length of the fault is 10 feet. And at this point here, where the pipeline is, we expect it to move no more than 20 feet."
On the other hand, maybe they just got lucky.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Alaska's state income.
Something like 80% oil
5% tourism
5% other
The state gets so much income from big oil that there is no state tax, and the residents are even given a yearly check "for being residents".
Trust me, alaskans are big oil people. They have reaped many benefits from big oil.
Heak, without oil, nobody really wants alaska. (does russia ring a bell?)
-Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Stuff like this makes me really dig being an engineer. Nice to see some recognition being given when an engineer gets it right and disaster is averted. This happens all the time, but no one really ever notices.
I work in the oil business (refining) and I am thinking of safety every day. Reviews are done throughout the design process that question what are the consequences if X happens. And if the consequences are unacceptable, we have to design them out or we can't go any further. It is very humbling to think about the fact that people's lives depend on your work. Humility is a job requirement.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
This was pretty remarkable considering that the earthquake was something like the third or forth largest in the world that year. Alaska routinely gets earthquakes that would level cities in other parts of the world. I've set though a couple 5 plus ones that people there hardly mentioned the next day. Now if they could only stop the drunks from shooting holes in the pipeline...