Thoughts on the Future of Urban/Civil Needs in Rock Mechanics

•The Future is Underground for Urban Infrastructure Development

•Rock is Difficult to Excavate in an Urban Environment

Often blasting is the least expensive alternativeARMA/NSF 2000 Workshop:Underground Urban Rock Construction

•To Peer into Future --- Think LogarithmicallyComputation will decline in price and increase in speed exponentially, which

willspark unimaginable Miniaturization & Computerization

•We’ve forgotten Nano

•Water is the Next OilWater deficits may develop in Metropolitan Chicago

•NEES for RockNational Earthquake Experimentation System

The Future is Underground for Infrastructure Development in

Congested Urban Environments Example: 9 Billion for

increasing limited NJ-NYC commuter rail capacity

Urban Mass Transit is Expensive: We have met the enemy and they are us!!

•98 % of those surveyed said that they preferred mass transit for someone else

•More people own pickup trucks than use mass transit

•Price of 1 gal of gasolineBelgium France Germany UK

US6.36 6.11 6.53 5.53 2.47

•Why has the Federal Government propelled Chrysler-Fiat to bet the bank on fuel stingy engines when Federal policy doesn’t discourage consumption?

•Policies that increase private transit efficiency allow increased use of private transit which allows more suburban sprawl and increases need for private transit (Jevon’s Paradox)

ARMA/NSF 2000 Workshop Underground Urban Rock Construction

Critically Needed Improvementsin Excavation (Blasting)

• Exploration• Design• Excavation• Support

• Prediction of penetration rates– 1 m TBM to test cutter head performance

• Innovative means of rock cutting– vibratory disks & disk + waterjet

• Directional drilling– Coiled casing, reduce max radius of curvature

• Controlled blasting– Auto feedback loops (pen rate -pf, vib–fragment size)

• Specific energy to explosively fragment– Gas pressure vs shock

Excavate slot in tunnel beneath critical RR line

for water lineWhat is the least expensive means to excavate?

Alternate Technologies: Trenching, Sawing, Splitting (mechanical, chemical)

Comparison of Excavation CostsAlternative Fragmentation/Excavation

Showing Least Cost of Blasting & Importance of Drill Footage/Factor

Excav Excav Drill Drill Total Vib NoiseTime Cost Pattern Footage Cost drill/break drill/break

Weeks $/ft $/ft

NON DRILLING Mecanized 6 815 2305 low high Trenching Hoe Ram ineffective in widely jointed granitic rock Chisel Mechanized need to create slots to start/ too specialized SawingDRILLING Mechanical 9 956 18x18, 2"ø 30100 2408 low/low mod/low 4" ø slot sides Splitting Chemical 9 980 12x12 48000 2980 low/low mod/low Splitting Explosives 4 508 5 to 10000 1940 low/mod mod/mod Convention Propellant 4 508 5 to 10000 1940 low/mod mod/mod Based

“The Internet came outof nowhere”

Even though we tendto extrapolate linearly or arithmetically (top plot of growth of internet hosts),

technological growth is exponential(bottom plot of same data plotted in a logarithmic scale)

(After Kurzweil)

To Peer into Future:Think Logarithmically

$/transistor cycle =>

Calc/se

c/$ 1,000 =

>

Total b

its sh

ipped =>

DNA sequencing costs =>(After Kurzweil)

Miniaturization & Computerization

Examples of Innovation• Electronic Blasting Cap

– Reduced potential timing errors by orders of magnitude– Increased security– More precise timing yields improved fragmentation

Pyrotechnic delay detonator

Electronic delay detonatorMicro processors => orders of magnitude greater precision Eg: 1 millisecond at ten seconds into the delay sequence

Miniaturization & Computerization

Examples of Innovation• Mine to Mill Fragmentation Tracking

– Autonomous tracking• truck identification - batch identification

– Photographic analysis of particle size distribution (image analysis)• Truck – post primary – post secondary

(from SPLIT, Kemeny)

HSBC Hybrid Stress Blasting CodeE.J. Sellers et al Fragblast 9 Granada, Spain

Complete Simulation of Complex Phenomenawith coupled process, discrete models

We’ve forgotten Nano: the frontier of miniaturization

• Down Hole Condition Communicator– Combination RIF sensors: – see Kurzwell’s artificial blood cells– Pump down and retrieve

Water price policy and public perception are not aligned

Price of Lake Michigan Water from my tap: $ 0.002/ galPrice of Lake Michigan Water from a plastic bottle: ~ $ 2.000/gal

According to Brita, its high-end faucet filter system provides water for 18 cents a gallon, a considerable saving from $1 or more typically charged for an 8- to 12-ounce bottle of water.

A recent survey of 14 countries indicates that average municipal water prices range from 66¢ per cubic meter (0.002$/gal) in the United States up to $2.25 in Denmark and Germany. Yet consumers rarely pay the actual cost of water. In fact, many governments practically (and sometimes literally) give water away for nothing.“Earth Policy Institute 2007”

Water Is the Next Oil

1985 Great Lakes CharterPrior notice of any diversion outside of basin that Exceeds 5,000,000 gal/day average over 30/daysGather data on diversions> 100,000 gal/day

http://www.cglg.org/projects/water/docs/GreatLakesCharter.pdf

Projected Growth in Consumption

http://www.nipc.org/environment/slmrwsc/Overview.htmhttp://www.growingsensibly.org/cmapdfs/TroubledWaters.pdf

References

• Educause 2006:Ray Kurzweil– http://www.kurzweilai.net/

• SPLIT: John Kemeny– http://www.spliteng.com/downloads/Pit

• ARMA: CH Dowding & P Smeallie– Rock Engr Issues: Urban Infrastructure

2000– http://www.armarocks.org/Bookstore/