Interesting and surprisingly relaxing video of a small tunnel being built

[MowCowWhoHow III]

[Suich]

1. I just watched this whole video

and I haven't even had my coffee yet!

Seems like that would be a much cheap way to build a tunnel!

Thanks for posting, MowCowWhoHow!!!

[Duppers]

2. That was very interesting!

I enjoying watching even though I skipped forward in a few places.

[marble falls]

3. Perfect for that survivalist in your family!

[tclambert]

4. Where do they get the giant Lego blocks?

Are they building a tunnel or a cave?

[Kaleva]

8. Toys"R"Us

[TNNurse]

10. Do not want to look too ignorant

but don't tunnels have openings at both ends???

[padruig]

5. "Reclaim" Tunnels

While they may look like the survivalists 'wet dream', a 'reclaim' tunnel is typically used in heavy extraction and processing industries.

These are not bored tunnels, but 'dig and cap' tunnels similar to the immediate sub-surface tunnels of the London Metro Tube system.

What your seeing here is a technique where the tunnel is built by first excavating into the soft earth and and interlocking pre-cast concrete blocks are stacked into the 'tunnel' geometry.

You can see they are using a standard flat-bed truck with a specially designed form to support the tunnel walls until the keystone is put in place. Once the keystone is in place, it exerts equal force against both walls of the tunnel holding the semi-circular shape.

Where and why you'd build a tunnel like this varies but a common usage is to put it in place near your extraction site and using conveyors to carry your feed stocks (coal, ore or other heavy material) to the processing facility.

You'd leave some heavy front loaders to push the feed stock material towards the chute of the conveyor.

This method has the advantage of being inexpensive and reusable.

[NJCher]

7. Thanks for posting that

I had no idea.

Cher

[PoliticAverse]

6. Those must be Mega-Mega Bloks. n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. The Roman viaduct arches were laid stone by stone over a wood frame....

When the keystones were placed the wooden frame was burned away leaving the stone arch.

[byronius]

11. Pretty durn cool.

[Laffy Kat]

12. Reminds me of when my boys were toddlers.

Both of them went through a tractor and truck phase. They were absolutely fascinated by excavating machines. When I had time, I would pull the car over at a construction site so we could watch awhile. This really brought back happy times. Where does the time go? Thanks for posting.