Arecibo telescope Collapses
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:19 am
Known from films such as James Bond's Goldeneye, the Arecibo telescope, a large dish inset into the terrain with three tall towers holding up by cable the triangular structure above the dish, collapsed last week - almost two weeks after it was decided it was to be demolished.
Each of the three towers were supposed to have six cables each, but two cables from one tower had already snapped, and a third snapping, causing the remaining three to take not only twice the load they were meant to, but also the dynamic loading from the shock of the cable snapping caused the cables to fail completely, and under tension from the other two towers, the triangular structure was essentially catapulted into the side of a hull that rose above the edge of the dish between the other two towers. Some other stuff, but basically look up scott manley on youtube for a video analysing the collapse. Amazing thing is... there's actual drone-captured FOOTAGE of the collapse, as the tower where the cable failure occured was being inspected at the time, visibly capturing the individual strands breaking, then the cable ripping out, or something.
Each of the three towers were supposed to have six cables each, but two cables from one tower had already snapped, and a third snapping, causing the remaining three to take not only twice the load they were meant to, but also the dynamic loading from the shock of the cable snapping caused the cables to fail completely, and under tension from the other two towers, the triangular structure was essentially catapulted into the side of a hull that rose above the edge of the dish between the other two towers. Some other stuff, but basically look up scott manley on youtube for a video analysing the collapse. Amazing thing is... there's actual drone-captured FOOTAGE of the collapse, as the tower where the cable failure occured was being inspected at the time, visibly capturing the individual strands breaking, then the cable ripping out, or something.
