Boring company

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Some other boring company news:

10 cents a brick, is, as far as I can tell, cheap for bricks. From the very little that I know about bricks, it seems like the biggest downside to these bricks would be their weight, which would make it harder to build things with them. But I don't know how much they weigh yet.

Pretty awesome.

[YNM]

27 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

10 cents a brick, is, as far as I can tell, cheap for bricks. From the very little that I know about bricks, it seems like the biggest downside to these bricks would be their weight, which would make it harder to build things with them.

These days we don't build structural masonry anymore. Nearly all brick walls can be taken out and the building will stay standing.

Concrete has a better particle cohesion, and reinforced concrete is as good as it gets.

[tater]

As a reality check, cinder blocks and red bricks are ~$1 each (or more).

[K^2]

4 hours ago, tater said:

As a reality check, cinder blocks and red bricks are ~$1 each (or more).

Needed a brick recently. Got red clay brick. Cost me $0.60. Felt weird going through checkout with a single brick. I think, cinder blocks were a bit pricier, but they're bigger, too. Yeah, brick/concrete construction is not cheap.

[tater]

Yeah, some red bricks are under a buck, depends on quality and quantity.  Still, $0.10 is cheap.

[monophonic]

20 hours ago, YNM said:

These days we don't build structural masonry anymore. Nearly all brick walls can be taken out and the building will stay standing.

Concrete has a better particle cohesion, and reinforced concrete is as good as it gets.

These guys might be interested in cheaper bricks.

Most 3D printing building systems seem to extrude concrete like materials though.

[tater]

My house is made of structural bricks.

Those bricks are made of dirt, however (adobe).

A neighbor's house is made of modern, composite bricks/blocks (rastra, shown below in random web image of rastra):

Those are also structural (they get back filled with concrete).

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, tater said:

My house is made of structural bricks.

Those bricks are made of dirt, however (adobe).

A neighbor's house is made of modern, composite bricks/blocks (rastra, shown below in random web image of rastra):

Those are also structural (they get back filled with concrete).

They are very common for basements here in Norway, also for places there you don't want to use wood but want insulation. 
No reason to use concrete, but sometimes thin rebar is used between the layers of bricks. Only seen the rectangular blocks used in the wall behind not the long grinder they are handling. Note like all brick constructions, they have an critical weakness to earthquakes. 

[YNM]

15 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Note like all brick constructions, they have an critical weakness to earthquakes. 

Guess where I live.

16 hours ago, monophonic said:

These guys might be interested in cheaper bricks.

No binder ? Hmm... Are they interlocking in some way ?

EDIT : After some digging, the construction technique you're referring to is insulating concrete form.

They're only the formwork for the reinforced concrete inside. They're not actual masonry.

Edited September 16, 2018 by YNM

[Shpaget]

Does anybody know how these boring bricks are held together? I don't mean with each other, but one brick in itself. Do they mix in cement to bind the excavated material, or is it just pressed and formed?

I saw the video of them being formed, but didn't see the material preparation. Do we have any test regarding durability of these bricks? If they don't use cement or some other binder, will they just melt away if soaked?

Another concern I have is, since the bricks are made from excavated material, the bricks will not be consistent. The material will change as the TBM passes through various soil/rock types.

 

[DAL59]

 

[Nightside]

 

On 9/15/2018 at 11:11 AM, Shpaget said:

Does anybody know how these boring bricks are held together? ...

This article suggests a cement binder. It also mentions that compressed earth blocks are not a new technology, so there would be studies on them in general. 

With regard to material properties, each batch, especially from different sources, would have to be tested to find minimum strength from a random sample. 

Not all souls would be suitable for brick making. I don’t know their recipe, but it would probably only work for very cohesive soil (clay). 

I suppose if you had a lot of sand and gravel you could just make concrete.

[YNM]

7 hours ago, Nightside said:

Not all soils would be suitable for brick making.

If you added cement to anything they bind enough. Even there are people who're researching about waste plastic aggregate.

But again, if the method used is as is shown in @tater's image, or as in @monophonic's video, they are not masonry - they are the casting for the reinforced concrete inside (hence the huge holes for the rebar).

 

_________

Oh, and the tunnels ?

Whatever, as long as the spoil heap isn't being transported out in some odd way aboveground (rather than a conveyor belt or railway cars inside).

Still would be worth more to be made as a metro though.

Edited September 17, 2018 by YNM

[tater]

^^^true. Boring Company bricks have indexes sot of like the Rastra (or LEGO), however. In that way they are similar. So I guess they're more like adobe, or adobe with some Portland (my bricks at home are not stabilized adobe, they're just dirt).

[YNM]

55 minutes ago, tater said:

(my bricks at home are not stabilized adobe, they're just dirt)

NM isn't at very high risk for earthquake though (still higher than northern great plains nevertheless).

Edited September 17, 2018 by YNM

[tater]

1 minute ago, YNM said:

NM isn't at very high risk for earthquake though (still higher than east coast nevertheless).

There are adobe structures around here that have been around since this was New Spain. Native American structures that predate the Spanish are generally stacked stone, with adobe plaster on top. They've been around rather longer.

I'm not overly concerned about earthquakes.

[YNM]

25 minutes ago, tater said:

There are adobe structures around here that have been around since this was New Spain. 

Unless you're homing straight for survivorship bias, they're probably easy to maintain among the high heat - just add mud and it's as good as it once was.

Here we used wood, which arguably is a lot better than concrete or steel in earthquake regards (doesn't have large inertia, lightweight - so non-fatal - and easy to repair) apart from the difficulty in making anything large from them.

Edited September 17, 2018 by YNM

[tater]

That maps defines a damaging earthquake as at least: "Felt by all, many frightened. Some heavy furniture moved; a few instances of fallen plaster. Damage slight."

Some furniture moved. Possible plaster damage. That's pretty much a non-event (on average every 200 years).

The strongest was a little over 100 years ago, near Socorro, and it cracked adobe walls, apparently. Most here are localized, and related to vulcanism, not plate movements like in CA. In the case of Socorro, it's a magma body that causes the earthquakes.

I'm far more concerned about the Jemez (a huge volcano) blowing up and buring us in ash than I am about earthquakes.

[YNM]

3 hours ago, tater said:

That maps defines a damaging earthquake as at least: "Felt by all, many frightened. Some heavy furniture moved; a few instances of fallen plaster. Damage slight."

Mercalli intensity VI. The 1906 New Mexico earthquake was intensity VII.

Then again, not the whole of the US is New Mexico - West Coast is a bit more 'exciting'.

3 hours ago, tater said:

I'm far more concerned about the Jemez (a huge volcano) blowing up and buring us in ash than I am about earthquakes.

Hmm...

Yeah, it really seems like the area you inhabit is very... boring.

[tater]

10 minutes ago, YNM said:

Mercalli intensity VI. The 1906 New Mexico earthquake was intensity VII.

Then again, not the whole of the US is New Mexico - West Coast is a bit more 'exciting'.

Hmm...

Yeah, it really seems like the area you inhabit is very... boring.

The Valles Caldera looks pretty...

It's 15km across, and is the caldera of a super volcano.

The Jemez are full of hot springs because the magma body is close to the surface.

Ash in last eruption vs others you might have heard of:

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

(Looking at this optimistic picture).

So, are they going to run a subway express "Sandstone", from San-Andreas to Yellostone?

 

[YNM]

13 hours ago, tater said:

The Valles Caldera looks pretty...

Spoiler

 

It's 15km across, and is the caldera of a super volcano.

Practically right next to what nearly eradicated life on Earth. And is only very recently active.

To the south is the Sunda trench.

Edited September 18, 2018 by YNM

[Green Baron]

Hi guys,

Are you playing "My volcano is bigger than yours !" ?

If so ... are we limited to the picturesque pointy ones and caldera eruptions or is a flood basalt valid as well ?

Cheers :-)

Edited September 18, 2018 by Green Baron

[Scotius]

Nothing can beat Siberian Traps in the category of "Your day is going to suck. And following several millions of years too."

[Green Baron]

The Toba is missing in the above picture, it is larger than the Yellowstone eruption in terms of vomited stuff, but maybe not a magnitude. But so called large igneous provinces are still 3-4 magnitudes higher than any of these, and assumed to have had a real impact on climate and evolution of life. For example, they might have helped earth out of a global ice age or have played a role in an extinction event. The largest ones are probably unknown because they occurred on sea floor and have long ago been subducted again.

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So the boring company sells bricks. Imo these could be used to build walls as a shield against flamethrowers. Sounds like a business plan. Seriously, good to read that they use a smaller version of proven technology, so there shouldn't be much delay to dig the tunnels from that side. If they get a grip on underground movement and wet sediments it could work out in the medium run and the main problems could be financing, studies, permits, licenses and all this stuff ?

Edited September 18, 2018 by Green Baron