The pipe, with a diameter of 11.5 feet, towered as high as 42 feet at one point, according to the Osaka construction department.
  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    3·
    2 days ago

    My engineer brain is breaking trying to understand how this could happen.

    Also, how the fuck does this work:

    By Thursday it had been lowered back to just several feet above the ground after firefighters cut a hole on the side and injected water to push it back into the ground.

    They did what now?

    • IggyTheSmidge@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      From the article:

      The pipe’s unexpected elevation from the ground occurred at a sewer construction site where workers had been connecting an existing sewer line with a channel designed to hold excess rainwater to prevent flooding.

      The pipe was being used as a retaining structure to keep the surrounding soil from collapsing during the operation, officials said. A short time earlier, workers had drained water from the pipe, which may have caused the empty apparatus to float, they said.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        1 day ago

        I… That still doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe I’m just having trouble picturing what this is even supposed to mean.

      • BCsven@lemmy.ca
        2·
        3 days ago

        Sounds like the pipe was used to great an underground work space for the connection the workers were doing below. The steel walls kept the giant hole’s dirt from falling in.

          • BCsven@lemmy.ca
            4·
            3 days ago

            Pipe just means tube, not that you have to use it as a fluid vehicle. There is structural Pipe. And they said they pumped the water out of it, which then let it float up on a presumes rising water table below, meaning it was hollow inside.

            From JapanTimea article:

            The pipe was being used as a retaining structure to prevent excavated soil from collapsing. Workers had been pumping groundwater out of the pipe until early Wednesday morning, but no abnormalities had been detected before the incident.

            Support pipe use, like when you dig a hole and shore it up on the sides. Rathen than a pile driven in to stop layered geology from aliding off a slope. The articles mentioned they were using it to get to the bottom and do their connection work…not connect too this pipe, but it can still be called a pipe by definition of what piping is.