I'm writing this from a boarded up house just south of Miami. I went through Andrew in this same house where we experienced gusts of up to 210 mph or more.
Natural disasters occur virtually everywhere. I would much rather deal with a hurricane than a tornado or an earthquake. You can prepare for a hurricane days in advance, with a tornado you get a few minutes at the very best.
The reason we don't build concrete domes is because, frankly, living in a dome would suck. A dome would be a huge waste of land area for the amount of useable space, which becomes a real consideration with property values as high as they are.
We fared pretty well in Andrew. We had no sheeting left on the roof and the interior of house was soaked, but the structure remained sound. The main reason we did well is that this house was built in 1958. The new construction was utter crap due to a quarter century of developers having their way with the building codes.
As the result of Andrew, the building codes have improved. Most houses down here are cinder-block, not brick or wood, prior to Andrew some houses were using stucco or chip board for exterior walls. In the Florida Keys, the most common type of house is cinder-block with a poured concrete roof on concrete stilts that form the first floor.
I agree with you about the trailer homes. Those things are friggin death traps in a storm.
The way you describe seems really cumbersome and frankly, dangeous as hell.
It might be useful to look at what is known as a vacuum mattress. This device is used to immobilize patients at accident scenes. It works by pumping air out of a sleeve filled with styrofoam pellets. The sleeve then becomes rigid.
A similar device could be fashioned by creating a sleeve that is worn around a joint, when not under vacuum it would bend relatively easily. Then when a hit was registered, the air could be pumped out renering the joint immobile.
The tricky part would revolve around routing of tubing to a central pump, or the usage of seperate pumps for each joint.
From what I've heard, the most common cause of a low burst is that the shell was not all the way down in the bottom of the tube. Standard practice in case of rain on most shoots I've seen is to staple plastic to the top of the mortar tube. When it comes time to fire the shot, you just shoot right through it.
More than likely they are using standard atmospheric air for the gas (nitrox is O2 enriched). Just from a cost perspective it makes sense, as you'll need a lot of air for a show the size of Disney's.
On a second note, the typical way to detonate a tube lauched firework shell is that the lift charge (what they are replacing) ignites a time delay fuse that then detonates the main charge.
Logisically speaking, this technology makes sense for large scale shows that take place in a fixed location on a regular basis. However, it will most likely not be adopted for smaller shows that are put in place for one show, in a temporary location.
From a safety standpoint, this technology should eliminate the burning paper that is sometimes left in the bottom of the launch tube. This buring paper can result in injury if the tube is reloaded during the show (bad idea). What I do worry about somewhat is insufficient launch pressure causing a low burst.
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The fact that Florida is seismically stable doesn't hurt either.
I'm writing this from a boarded up house just south of Miami. I went through Andrew in this same house where we experienced gusts of up to 210 mph or more.
Natural disasters occur virtually everywhere. I would much rather deal with a hurricane than a tornado or an earthquake. You can prepare for a hurricane days in advance, with a tornado you get a few minutes at the very best.
The reason we don't build concrete domes is because, frankly, living in a dome would suck. A dome would be a huge waste of land area for the amount of useable space, which becomes a real consideration with property values as high as they are.
We fared pretty well in Andrew. We had no sheeting left on the roof and the interior of house was soaked, but the structure remained sound. The main reason we did well is that this house was built in 1958. The new construction was utter crap due to a quarter century of developers having their way with the building codes.
As the result of Andrew, the building codes have improved. Most houses down here are cinder-block, not brick or wood, prior to Andrew some houses were using stucco or chip board for exterior walls. In the Florida Keys, the most common type of house is cinder-block with a poured concrete roof on concrete stilts that form the first floor.
I agree with you about the trailer homes. Those things are friggin death traps in a storm.
Just watch, Farenheit 451 will almost certainly make the list at some point.
The way you describe seems really cumbersome and frankly, dangeous as hell.
It might be useful to look at what is known as a vacuum mattress. This device is used to immobilize patients at accident scenes. It works by pumping air out of a sleeve filled with styrofoam pellets. The sleeve then becomes rigid.
A similar device could be fashioned by creating a sleeve that is worn around a joint, when not under vacuum it would bend relatively easily. Then when a hit was registered, the air could be pumped out renering the joint immobile.
The tricky part would revolve around routing of tubing to a central pump, or the usage of seperate pumps for each joint.
From what I've heard, the most common cause of a low burst is that the shell was not all the way down in the bottom of the tube. Standard practice in case of rain on most shoots I've seen is to staple plastic to the top of the mortar tube. When it comes time to fire the shot, you just shoot right through it.
More than likely they are using standard atmospheric air for the gas (nitrox is O2 enriched). Just from a cost perspective it makes sense, as you'll need a lot of air for a show the size of Disney's.
On a second note, the typical way to detonate a tube lauched firework shell is that the lift charge (what they are replacing) ignites a time delay fuse that then detonates the main charge.
Logisically speaking, this technology makes sense for large scale shows that take place in a fixed location on a regular basis. However, it will most likely not be adopted for smaller shows that are put in place for one show, in a temporary location.
From a safety standpoint, this technology should eliminate the burning paper that is sometimes left in the bottom of the launch tube. This buring paper can result in injury if the tube is reloaded during the show (bad idea). What I do worry about somewhat is insufficient launch pressure causing a low burst.