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Via email, GW Johnson sent a reply about why there are not tornado shelters underground in Texas.
Texas is one of a number of states in the US where tornadoes occur frequently, due to distinctive weather patterns in the region.
On 4/14/22 09:58, Gary Johnson wrote:
> Hard rock right under the surface makes digging difficult. Blasting is discouraged.
>
> Most of our tornadoes are F1's and F2's. The one near Salado was a bit unusual as an F3. There's a little town called Jarrell several dozen miles south of here that was hit twice by F5's a few decades ago, though.
>
> GW
>
The description of the terrain in the region described in the email reminds me of what seems to be the case on Mars.
Assuming the "no blasting" rule applies to Mars as well as to Earth, I'm offering for our membership this opportunity to work out in detail how to excavate substantial amounts of volume in either location.
The tools designed for Mars will (likely) differ somewhat from those which would work well on Earth. I'm thinking primarily of the lack of oxygen on Mars, but there may well be other differences due to the sand storms that occur there.
Sand storms occur on Earth as well (of course) but (?perhaps) not as frequently in Texas.
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This topic is intended for serious contributions.
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Using nothing but Solar Power...I've no idea how defeat such a limitation
Mars and other Solar system bodies will be an interesting place to test new ideas.
If 3-D printers can make almost anything then it will be off huge benefit to build and repair and make all machines on site rather than getting tools shipped from Earth, hydraulic jacks, Tunnel bore machines, the cutter jets, the drills can possibly be printed in a future time.
It might be possible to use some new hydrid technique, a kind of ferric sulfate salt liquid some brine salt liquid to cut without making dusts, there might be acids and deliquescence of calcium perchlorate and already there are three huge types of liquid water in the surface of Mars. Water changes its properties behaves differently at interfaces—where it meets the air, or a solid surface, the Interfacial water molecules at gas-liquid surface have a strong attraction towards the bulk liquid causing higher surface tension, maybe we will figure out how to use liquid waters as a drill, once the waters are collected they can be used to cut and drill. Once inside a cave or tunnel a different technique could be used the most damaged rock will be removed from the final excavation line and result in a smooth profile for the perimeter. The typical machine we now see in photos is the tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole", is a machine used to excavate tunnels, it has a big Dome Spherical face with lots of cutting teeth stich out, with a circular cross section, it cuts through a variety of soil and rock strata. Drill method comes in and is mainly used for hard rock where digging is not possible. CryoJet is another that may produce reduction in waste spill currently produced during the water jet cutting process. The track-mounted excavating machine can be fitted with extra equipment such as robotic gathering arms on your Mars machine for the spoil, some kind of water jets to reduce dust, and conveyors for removing debris. A miner community might settle near the site, then if a more troublesome problem occurs and the rock is too hard a lesser form of blasting might be looked at, a smooth wall technique also involves more perimeter drill holes when compared to conventional underground methods. It seems always that some form of Underground Blasting is the main method to cave the tunnels on our planet Earth, or some form of blast used to build roads through hills or for making underground mining. There are big risks a typical Collapse, a Shift in the Walls, Machine and Material Falling, a Heave or settlement suddenly moving or getting damaged by earth vibration, Coolants might leak, there could be an electric burn and Liquids can be a danger there could be new. Flood material created or a new inflow of new type of Mars-mud, Mars Dusts will probably be created no matter how much you try to prevent it and there is risk of fumes and Escape of gas and toxins that create dangers in other areas of the site, the Blasting and fuels and explosives will be a danger. There was an interesting recent and unexpected Excavation on the Chinese Lander that made a huge crater, it was discussed in another thread I believe this wasn't burn a hole through the rock but simply dumping pressurized fuel. Now imagine a 40 ton lander, able to collect air and liquid from the atmosphere and the ideas for future robots, how how it will function also as a digger and how big its hole and drill ability will be. That hole made will likely collapse but a digger or suck pump can be used for sapping soil away from a site will making the wheels secure or from the footpads. In certain cases Water and other liquids can cut rock, on Earth we use Liquids to trap Dust when digging or drilling, Hand-held Grinders come with Wet Dust Suppression. There is also a whole other science of 'Micro-tunnels' how to have robots to make small routes and pipes for water or electrics and the shield methods used, the micro tunnels sometimes use laser equipment to cut, in Aus they don't design first, their mining operations decided they should in future check things out on the ground first rather than write up theory and determine methods based on actual observed ground conditions, each part of a mountain or earth or soil or cave system is different, which gives it the whole design as you go approach.
A Bucket, use Water or Suck and Drills?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/en … ion-method
Grab bucket method
The central part stratum uses the crane grab bucket to dig the well sleeve because the grab bucket will always grab the soil in the central part of the well sleeve, even if grabbed deeply, so the soil under the blade foot will never be grabbed. If the strength of the soil at the blade foot is low, the soil will easily collapse due to the self-weight of the well sleeve. This is called foot collapse phenomenon, and this method is effective for soft soil formations. On the contrary, if the stratum has a certain strength (such as dense sand layer or gravel layer), the foot collapse phenomenon does not easily occur, causing the well sleeve to sink. In this case, it is necessary to loosen the stratum with a rocker auger then carry out the grab sinking construction.
Hydraulic mechanical method
The high-pressure water gun is used to break the ground, and the air slurry suction machine (or slurry pump) is used to discharge mud through the slurry discharge pipe. The high-pressure water gun breaks the center of the ground first, and then the sides of the ground, and the flushing excavation is symmetrically layered. Compared with the grab bucket method, its advantage is that it can excavate the inclined surface of the blade foot and the flushing excavation of the high-pressure water injection pipe preset outside the shaft, so it can complete the flushing excavation to the soil mass at the inclined surface of the well. The disadvantage of this method is that the excavation range is not easy to control and there is the existence of blindness.Drilling and suction method
The drilling and suction method is to drill holes to loosen the soil mass first, and then inject water into the holes for flushing excavation, so the excavation range is easy to control, blindness can be avoided, and the efficiency is high. Even the inclined surface part of the blade foot can be excavated in place. In addition, the high-pressure water injection flushing excavation effect from the water injection holes embedded on the outer side of the blade foot and the inclined surface of the blade foot can make the soil mass at the inclined surface and tread part of the blade foot be dug out. The water excavation method requires equipping the slurry precipitation equipment and slurry separation equipment on the ground surface, and at the same time, the water excavation method also requires the construction site to have the discharge conditions of waste mud and waste water.
'Non-Destructive Digging: Hydro Excavation'
https://agselaw.com/non-destructive-dig … xcavation/
' One major advantage is the completion of projects with less risks and zero damage to infrastructures already in place. This result in improved productivity, cost-efficiency, and reduced liability issues.'
Mechanical digging, a conventional digging method may be effective but it is not the most efficient and it can also be destructive. In most areas where digging and excavation works are done, there are usually buried assets and utilities that are located underground. These are not seen and if any one of these get hit by backhoes, diggers or trenchers that are used in mechanical digging, this can mean a big headache for the contractor. Aside from the fact that this will be a cause or the delay in the completion on of the project, there will be additional expenses incurred for the repair of the damage.
Non-destructive excavation is an alternative that can be used. This is a safer and less risky way of excavating the ground. The risks of damaging any of the wire, cables, pipes and lines can be minimized if not avoided. This means that the excavation can be done quickly and properly. there is less worries for the safety of the workers and the people in the area as well. You can just imagine the problems that some of these damages can cause like a burst gas pipe, broken water pipe or a cut electric line. It can also be an inconvenience to many people, some of whom may even try to stop the continuation of the work. Non-destructive excavation has two ways and these are hydro excavation and air vacuum excavation.
the main differences between the two ways of non-destructive excavation are:
https://civconsydney.wordpress.com/2014 … -two-ways/
air vacuum excavation cannot be used on frozen ground while using hot water in hydro excavation makes this possible
hydro excavation can be used in almost all types of soil while air vacuum excavation is limited
hydro excavation creates mud and slurry while in air vacuum excavation, the soil remains dry which makes it still usable for back filling needs
hydro excavation can cause flooding while air vacuum excavation can make a dusty environment
A read here
https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 … 19-04749-0
'Developments of non-conventional drilling methods—a review'
'Demand for drilled micro-holes on difficult to machine materials have increased over the past years and non-traditional drilling processes are commonly used to fabricate such micro-holes on difficult to machine materials. This research investigates different non-traditional drilling processes, such as electro discharge, laser beam, abrasive water jet, electrochemical and electrochemical discharge drilling methods. Drilling mechanism, material removal rate/machining speed and surface finish have been analysed for every process. These analyses clearly show that vaporisation, melting, chemical dissolution and mechanical erosion are dominant material removal mechanism during non-traditional drilling. The understanding on electro discharge, laser beam and abrasive water jet drilling are more developed than that of electrochemical, electrochemical discharge and hybrid drilling processes.'
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-04-14 10:46:46)
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Mars_B4_Moon,
We would probably need a battery or fuel cell-powered excavator, but hydraulic drills would work:
If we drilled closely spaced bore holes and then used hydaulic fracturing, we should be able to excavate large pieces of rock without resorting to much more powerful and heavy cutting tools.
That said, if you send something that big then you can also power a rock cutter or saw:
National Attachments - Rock Saws
I think you'll probably need all of those tool attachments for the excavator, along with various buckets to remove the rubble or overburden.
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Was thinking that a make shift rock laser made from solar concentration that is fiber cable fed to the cutting end held by machine would melt the rock away.
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For SpaceNut re #4
Thanks for the tip that lasers are now powerful enough to melt rock. That has (apparently) happened in recent years... Google found this:
Modern high power lasers have enough power to spall melt and vaporize all types of rocks.
Investigation of effect of CO2 laser parameters on drilling ...
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community.glowforge.com › laser-like-rock-meltingDec 3, 2015 · When I was a kid I took a 12" by 12" Freznel lens and melted the surface of several stones. The pic is of one I was comissioned to make.
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After reading the comment by the "kid" who melted the surface of stones with a Freznel lens, I realized that (of course) rock melts ... lava is solidified molten rock.
Still, the thought of excavating a basement in the clay soil with rock underlayment described by GW Johnson is daunting, if the tool at hand is a laser.
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One of the jobs I had a while back was fire protection. One project was the underground fire water main supplying a new school. Code requires that pipe be 6 feet below grade, no exceptions. It was a 900 foot run. Being on a hill, it was mostly rock, unfractured. Only inches of soil. That rock was solid caliche limestone. A backhoe couldn't touch it. We rented a giant track hoe. It was almost a 2 week job. Tough dig. Re-welded teeth onto the bucket every day, multiple times a day.
This was right in a city: no blasting. It's not too bad doing 1-inch shot holes for dynamite. In mass quantities, ANFO is cheaper. But it requires a 9-inch shot hole to get blast wave propagation. 9-inch shot holes in caliche are really hard to do, in some ways iron ore rock is easier. "Dirt work" in this kind of stuff is why construction can be slow in this sort of country.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2022-04-14 22:32:17)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Back in the real world we use cutting tools to excavate rock, not lasers or fresnel lenses. If you could supply 100kWe of solar power, then you would use it to power a cutting tool with hardened teeth / picks that's attached to a large excavator arm. In all real world rock quarrying jobs, a bucket or shovel is used to remove the overburden and some kind of cutting tool is used to excavate the rock beneath it.
If we want to cut something thin like a piece of sheet metal, then we use an industrial laser cutting head in a comparatively clean environment. If we're cutting something thicker like a plate, then we'll use a water jet (cleaner but slower cuts; can cut almost any material from metals to plastics) or plasma cutter (lower cost, lower quality but faster cuts and used primarily for metals like steel).
If we want high quality welds, then we use electron beams or lasers. The electron beams require vacuum, but they can weld somewhat arbitrary thickness work pieces with minimal heat affected zones, whereas the lasers do not but are best used for welding thinner sheet metal because the melt pool reflects the laser back at the laser head. Both can technically cut metal, but in practice only lasers or plasma or water jet are used for this purpose. Very thick and complex work pieces like the labyrinth passages within a heat exchanger circuit require diffusion bonding of the side plates. For industrial applications, MIG or TIG or arc welding are most common because of total cost and complexity.
Total cost, power consumption, total complexity, and suitability to task are all taken into account in the methods that we use here on Earth, and all of them can be applied to Mars where similar construction or fabrication tasks must be completed. The rule book for construction and fabrication work doesn't get thrown out the window just because you're trying to construct something on another planet.
Mars presents challenges for power sources and heat dissipation. There's no Oxygen-rich atmosphere to use liquid hydrocarbon fuels and the atmosphere is as thin at Mars sea level as it is on Earth at about 130,000 feet. That means your construction machine's power source is a battery or a fuel cell or an electric cable connecting it to a solar array or nuclear reactor. Most construction machines consume quite a bit of constant power to operate.
For example, many of these rock cutting heads require 100hp to 150hp to operate. An excavator probably requires a 2MWh battery to be useful, which means the battery cells alone weigh 8,000kg. This is not a showstopper for an excavator machine that's largely stationary, as most of these machines require very heavy counter-balance weights to avoid tipping over. The batteries will actually bring the CG of the machine closer to the ground, which is good for stability. The machine will be hydraulically-driven because hydraulic systems are still best for low-speed torque production.
Stronger and tougher but more expensive martensitic steels can be used for the chassis and components like the excavator arm to reduce total machine weight. The hydraulic components already use such steels, much like aircraft landing gear. Trucks that carry away the overburden and mined materials can probably be robots if they follow a set path through the quarry or construction site and are remote-controlled by a human operator. However, having a human operator in the vehicle allows him or her to "feel the ground" they're riding over to determine how fast to go, how to avoid obstacles, and where to unload at if the unload point is not a static location like a rock crusher (pile-to-pile movement of materials if you need loaders on each end). The truck tires will require CO2 pressurization and an embedded heating element wrapped around the wheel hub or embedded into the tire itself to keep tire temperatures within a specified range that prevents the rubber from cracking. We already have both wheel hubs and tires with embedded heating elements, so this is already done here on Earth.
This Kuhn-Schweitz "eDumper" electric dump truck requires a human operator:
Whereas this much smaller robotic Volvo electric dump truck does not, relying upon multiple machines of the same model to move enough material:
Which is better?
I guess that depends upon the nature of its use and how many of these machines you want to use and maintain. In most Earth quarrying operations, the excavator, loader, dumper, and other machinery to pulverize the ore are all sized to minimize the number of machines required, as that tends to minimize total cost and downtime. The individual machines are larger and heavier, but also tend to be more durable. Adding more machines than is absolutely necessary doesn't typically increase productivity in practice, and will increase the risk of accidents. If there's a single excavator, a single loader, and a single dumper, then there are far fewer moving vehicles to maneuver around.
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For GW Johnson (all other contributions welcome of course)...
Thanks for your detailed description of the challenge of digging that trench in the local terrain.
I'm presuming that work was done under contract, with a deadline and quite possibly a fixed price. There was no time for innovation.
Now that a bit of time has passed, I'm wondering if you'd be interested in taking another look at the requirements for a machine to perform the equivalent work.
We have interesting suggestions from kbd512 for the Mars case, drawn from (what sounds like) wide ranging experiences on Earth.
kbd512's example arrives at a suggestion of just three machines to perform the work.
Right now, I'd like to try to encourage study/thinking about just the "cutter" component, and I'm specifically interested in the drill, and more specifically than that, I'm interested in the lander drill idea included in your proposal for a Mars water search lander.
Would you be interested in thinking about that?
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Take a look at what I suggested in the "business opportunity" thread. That uses the 1-inch rock drill, plus water in the hole, and a reduced quantity of dynamite right near the hole entrance, plus a tad of confinement by plugging the hole entrance.
It's still blasting, but with reduced explosives by incorporating a water-hammer effect somewhat similar to fracking. I do NOT know if it would really work, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever tried this. But the water hammer effect is quite real.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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For GW Johnson ... thanks for Post #9, with addition of the "water hammer" to the topic ...
A ** real ** hammer (ie, pile driver) could produce the same effect, and it would not require explosives.
This topic is intended to find solutions that do ** not ** require explosives.
I'm still hoping the simple drill concept that you considered for Mars exploration can be adapted to this situation.
A simple mechanical drill involves directing a strong blade (of some kind) against frozen (ie, melted rock that has hardened) material.
A laser system employs photons to "blast" away individual atoms from a hardened material.
kbd512 has indicated he considers the idea of using a laser to cut stone to be NOT "real world".
I don't know what the state of play of this technology might be.
Certainly, a few years ago, the assessment of kbd512 would have been accurate.
Hopefully there are members of the forum who can discover the ** real ** state of play.
If/When laser cutters can work with hardened material (ie, rock) in an industrial scale, the old use of hardened blades can be set aside as ancient technology. It has served well for thousands of years, and must be respected for its performance over all that time.
I suspect (without having any way to actually ** know ** ) the age of hardened blades is close to an end, just as stone tips for arrows gave way to metal tips on chemically powered projectiles.
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I like the work being done here. However, I would invite an alternate discussion at "Index» Terraformation» Worlds, and World Engine type terraform stuff." In that case I am considering the liquification of rock for various reasons and alternate methods.
I don't want to discuss it here because it is a different sort of method, and I want to see what outputs other members will create here.
I will continue my dialog in a new post there.
Done.
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Mars_B4_Moon,
We would probably need a battery or fuel cell-powered excavator, but hydraulic drills would work:
If we drilled closely spaced bore holes and then used hydaulic fracturing, we should be able to excavate large pieces of rock without resorting to much more powerful and heavy cutting tools.
That said, if you send something that big then you can also power a rock cutter or saw:
National Attachments - Rock Saws
I think you'll probably need all of those tool attachments for the excavator, along with various buckets to remove the rubble or overburden.
If hydraulic fracturing can loosen the rock, then a jack hammer can remove rock from the shattered rock face. Maybe the jack hammer can be powered by compressed CO2.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackhammer
For removing the overburden, maybe a small battery powered excavator could load the rock onto a conveyor? Other options would be a rail vehicle, with tracks being extended as excavation proceeds. Power could be provided by two power rails mounted to the ceiling, with cables attached to sliding contacts, rather like a trolley bus.
We could in fact keep the tunnels as oxygen pressurised shirt sleeve environments, by fitting two u-bend airlocks filled with water at the tunnel entrance. Rail trucks filled with rock would be pushed down the u-bend on the tunnel side and then pulled up by cable at the Mars ambient side. The empty trucks would reenter the tunnel through the other airlock. The pressure difference between tunnel and Mars ambient can be maintained by the height of the water column.
Another option is to use pneumatic tubes to blow crushed rock out of the tunnel. The obvious problem here is achieving a good enough seal to prevent tunnel depressurisation. Wear is another problem.
Last edited by Calliban (2022-04-18 09:20:39)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Answer to the OP's question:
Stephen Merkel - Laser Engineer for a company that builds multi kW metal processing lasers:
For thin sections, yes, but there is an economical limit to the amount of power you would have in the laser source, you would have difficulty removing the molten material using an assist gas like most industrial lasers use, and the stone would be dangerous to cut if it had voids that could potentially have water in them, due to a risk of explosion. For these reasons, cutting thick stone sections of the order of several feet would be uneconomical.
There are other answers stating the same thing, but this is the gist of it:
1. Laser power will be measured in 10s of megawatts to 10s of gigawatts to make progress in a reasonable amount of time
2. Laser will cause volatiles like water or gas to go "ka-boom" (technical term)
3. Laser drilling requires a way to remove the molten / vaporized rock, else the laser's power is re-absorbed by the removed material
4. Laser requires continuous refocusing or it doesn't remove material
5. Laser cutting works best on homogeneous materials like metal or plastic
I'm guessing that drilling using microwaves would run into very similar problems.
Sound waves have also been used to fracture rock, but again, the issue is that rock is not a single material. Frequencies that would shatter glass or crystal or even metal, may not do anything at all to a material that is not a single material.
Now that we've dispensed with fantasy, let's apply a "laser focus" to reality.
Cutting or drilling through rock is best done with purpose-built rock cutters, despite the problems. That's why we use these tools.
Hydraulic fracturing or the use of pneumatic tools also works.
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For kbd512 re #13
Thanks for doing the research reported in #13 ...
SearchTerm:laser cutting of stone less than productive
SearchTerm:stone cutting with laser
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tahanson43206,
A small quantity of water coolant / lubricant would go a long way towards reducing premature tool failure.
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I am reminded that I live in the Granite state and it did rock quarrying long before using modern tools.
http://www.quincyquarrymuseum.org/virtual-museum.html
https://quarriesandbeyond.org/articles_ … talog.html
Quarries are not new
https://per-storemyr.net/2015/05/20/new … ent-egypt/
How the tools get it done.
https://www.greatlakesgm.com/education/ … -quarried/
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SpaceNut,
Were any of them wearing space suits while using those tools?
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None inside a dome for mars but then again how many did we use here on earth?
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SpaceNut,
Anyone working outside in a rock quarry on Mars will have to wear a space suit. The point is, that's a job for very large machines capable of removing many tons of material per hour.
There are two practical reasons for large scale excavation:
1. underground construction, such as tunnel boring or drilling operations
2. mining operations, such as Iron ore collection
We need Iron to build with. We may need to extract other minerals to use to make concrete. We will definitely need water. If there's Methane on Mars for whatever reason, then we'll want to drill for that, too. We may have solar storm shelters bored into rock to assure that no matter what the Sun does, the radiation storm doesn't get through.
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Speaking of tunnels (Post #19), I asked Google about The Boring Company (Elon Musk and friends).
According to the snippets, the Boring Company does not use advanced technology, but they DO use existing technology efficiently.
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If anyone can find details about the equipment they are using to deal with underground conditions (such as Las Vegas), and their methods of disposing of cuttings and providing power and other supplies to the cutting engine, this topic would be a great place for it!
***
For SpaceNut re rock quarry ... thanks for the reminder of the sturdy folk who lived (and worked) in New Hampshire. I would ** hope ** the work is now automated, but there may still be manual operations in some areas.
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here is one post topic but we have another for the equipment
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it can be difficult to find an appropriate construction topic
if there was a robot farm or Biofuel station or maybe a Nuclear Power station to provide a vehicle power
AI, robotics dominate 2024’s construction tech forecast
https://www.constructiondive.com/news/2 … en/703692/
Expect machines trained on “large behavior models,” more mass timber, prefab and 3D printing. But always keep jobsite safety in mind, experts say.
A topic that often goes with AI, robotics are also front and center in the contech space.
Their applications are varied. Some lay bricks. Some drive piles as part of industrial solar installations. One humanoid robot can move around a jobsite, tossing bags with impressive feats of dexterity and athleticism. Finally, an experimental worksite in Canada was entirely operated by autonomous machinery.
But that may just be the beginning of the rise of the machines in construction.
Roedel pointed to a breakthrough from the Toyota Research Institute, where researchers are using a generative AI technique known as “diffusion policy” to teach robots how to perform dexterous tasks. In the same vein as large language models, like ChatGPT, the goal is to create Large Behavior Models.
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