The Engineering Marvel called Panama Canal

Did you know that a simple drought in the Panama region could stop the operation of the great Panama Canal? This

marvel

of civil

engineering

uses an intelligent locking system to lift passing ships by almost 20 meters to transport them safely through the

canal

and materialize this. An intelligent

canal

lock system was needed. Super-fast concreting technology was needed. Look at the giant T-cranes that American engineers invented. They moved by steam locomotives. Did you notice a small house on top of the crane? Interestingly, the steam engine inside this house could lift a bucket full of concrete and also controlled its movement precisely.

This steam-driven cable pulley mechanism delivered the bucket to its destination much faster than manually transporting material the way it was. The way the concrete was thrown was also quite innovative; You may have already noticed how this 100 year old invention was able to move the concrete cube in all three directions, Americans invented many more amazing machines to successfully complete the Panama Canal project, but the question is why is it so important? this canal project if the Atlantic and Pacific oceans can be connected through water, ships can save a travel distance of 20,000 kilometers the best location to achieve the canal dream is a narrow region in the country of Panama Panama is a stunning country with very rugged terrain this cross section of terrain is proof that the most obvious solution is to simply excavate all of this allowing the oceans from both sides to come in and connect so ships can continue their journey.

The French tried exactly this method in 1892 and failed miserably. Landslides, torrential rains and diseases were the main problems. The removal of the earth took almost eight years and killed almost 22 thousand people as a result, the project was finally abandoned, the Americans came up with a brilliant idea: why should you excavate the Earth completely? Simply remove a portion of these huge mountains and flood the entire expanse of land with water. Learn how they filled just a small width with water without flooding the entire country of Panama, as you can clearly see, as long as the ship is raised above this new raised water surface, it can easily cross Panama, but how exactly did they make it possible to raise it? a heavy ship at this new water level Engineers relied on this simple trick if an object can float in water simply by increasing the water level it will rise to implement this trick we must first install three gates at the entrance to the Panama Canal . the first gate is open the boat enters the region between the two gates now close the first gate and open this valve the water from the second chamber is released both the water level and the boat will rise automatically once the water levels are same open the second door so the ship can effortlessly enter the next chamber now close the second door and do one more water leveling after some more water leveling the ship can now enter the raised water platform effortlessly , so the ship can continue its long journey through this fantastic shortcut through Panama, when the ship reaches the end of the canal, it must descend back to sea level to achieve this, simply perform the same water leveling technique on the exactly opposite sequence in which the ship was lowered to ocean level in this Great, this raising and lowering is a completely gravity based method, no external power is needed for this operation, however, did you notice a little problem here when The first ship entered the canal, the ocean and the chamber water were at the same level, however, after it was completely? an extra water passage was raised formed in the first chamber this extra water must be released into the ocean so that the next boat can enter the chamber this water passage originally came from the lake therefore with the passage of each boat the lake Gatún loses water without correcting this problem Gatún Lake would eventually dry up completely and the operation of the Panama Canal would cease, fortunately this is not the case Gantoon Lake is supplied by the Chagras River whose waters come from local rainfall in the province of Panama As long as there is enough rain, the loss of water that occurs during each ship crossing is easily compensated.

However, the drought of the Panama Canal in 2019 scared everyone. The water level in Panama dropped too low due to the drought, some transporters were forced to limit the amount of cargo to safely navigate the waterway. The following year there was enough rain and the canal functioned optimally once again. Now let's address the big question: how do we flood this exact region of Panama? For this we must first build a dam with the water flow of the Chagras River. will accumulate within the region of the dam the newly formed body of water is

called

Gatun Lake one of the largest artificial lakes by simply controlling the height of the dam or the height of the water surface we can achieve different levels of flooding unfortunately there is no way to flood only this region, if you try to flood the entire crossing, almost the entire country of Panama will be under water because of this, American engineers decided to stop the flooding at this level, almost two thirds of the land is flooded and only a small portion remains above water.

Now the real challenge begins: the removal of this 15-kilometer-long non-flooded region or the formation of Culebra, cutting off the entire purpose of connecting the dam and ocean water. Take a look at these giant machines known as a stick shift soil spreader and unloader. Curiously, they were all invented for a specific purpose of the cut skull when removing the Earth and connecting the oceans. The king of the construction machinery of the Panama Canal was the steam shovel created by Bucyrus to achieve this mega project. 70 steam shovels of this type were used, even such a gigantic machine struggled in the Rockies of Panama. terrain the correct solution is the use of dynamite a staggering average of eight hundred thousand charges of dynamite were used per month during the main excavation works dynamite effortlessly broke large rocks into smaller pieces which could then be easily picked up with steam shovels that a single shovel could move two tons of dirt the way the dirt was dumped on the train was so cool to see take a look at the power source of this gigantic machine a steam engine the way this steam engine controls This machine is a classic example of the incredible innovations of the early 20th century.

Engineers rotated the boom using a stand with a rope around it. The rocker arm could move from side to side thanks to this interesting gear arrangement. The dipper arm could also rotate thanks to this chain pulley arrangement when the bucket was ready to dump. material, the crane operator simply pulled the latch, the now filled wagons with dirt were able to begin their journey towards the landfill area, as it turns out that even simply emptying the dirt from these 20+ wagons was a big challenge with the With the help of an experiment, let's see how Americans solve this problem.

This simple piece solved the big download problem. Let's see it in action. I'm moving the unloader piece. You can see all the stones falling in this direction. This is something interesting. This animation shows the details of automatic soil pouring. The machine when this steam winch rotates, pulls the unloader towards it, as a result, the earth is poured from the open edge of the car. Let's look at the download operation from another angle. These big mountains of dirt on the sides of the railroad tracks won't do it. allow more dumping when the next carload of material arrives to flatten these mountains.

The Americans invented yet another machine. the soil spreader the soil spreader has steel wings that can extend 11 to 13 feet from the rails on each side the operation of this machine is It is so satisfying to watch that you can see how easily the machine pushes the soil and flattens the mountains. Once the embankment became wide enough, clever engineers changed the track to the new flat surface. To change the track, engineers invented and deployed another cool machine

called

a track changer. The track changer has a small but useful crane driven by a locomotive. The workers are connecting the track with the track changer.

The first step in the operation is to lift. floor track this is achieved with the help of a chain yoke and Upper arm arrangement, you may now be wondering how steel rails can be bent this way. This was made possible through the use of a special type of flexible steel rail. Now the lower arm rotates to one side and the track shifts in this way a large section of the track could be shifted without having to dismantle and rebuild the track. If the track changer had not been invented, it would have taken around 500 workers to work using the old method, changing sleepers and rails separately using this newly invented machine.

It is estimated that the US government saved several million dollars. Now it's time to see using these machines how engineers formed the Culebra cut. The Culebra cut was a great

engineering

lesson for civil engineers around the world. Suppose the excavation took place in a non-mountainous region. This is what the French thought. enough to dig, however, it was necessary to remove almost three times as much soil, even the Americans could not imagine the need to remove such a huge amount of soil, the reason for this is landslides, all materials have an angle of rest the angle of repose needed for the Culebra region was quite low to achieve a stable cut after years of earth removal the collaborative cut was almost ready the last remaining challenge was this elevated portion called Gamboa Dyke as expected at these heights Americans addressed this issue in style on October 10 In 1913, US President Woodrow Wilson pressed a button that sent a signal to 7,000 kilograms of dynamite located 6,000 kilometers away at Gamboa Dyke in Panama.

Engineers had prepared an extensive network of electrical cables mostly under the ocean to transfer the president's signal to Panama later. When the button was pressed, the signal took four seconds to reach its destination. There it caused a spark and a giant explosion, leaving a 60-foot space in the Gamboa Dam. The water from Gatún Lake immediately rushed towards the Calabra cut. Finally, the men were found. Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the first time Not only was this a moment of great pride for Americans, but the entire world joined in celebrating this historic moment using the fundamentals and technologies we have learned so far, let's review all the details of the transit of a ship through the Panama Canal when a cargo ship approaches the canal lock chamber the ship's propeller must be turned off the ship will now be moved by these two tugboats no ship can pass through the lock chamber By your own means, observe how the ship is perfectly aligned with the canal door thanks to the lateral thrust of these ships.

Just before the ship enters the lock chamber, the Canal workers tie it to four electric locomotives called mules that travel on both sides of a lock wall on a high voltage railway track these locomotives carefully guide the ship so that it does not hit the lock walls the ship is now undergoing some climbing operations on water steps the Canal locks of Panama are so well designed that today's huge ships can safely pass through them with only a few centimeters to spare after climbing the water final step the ship reaches the famous cut of Culebra you know what comes after the cut of the caliber the gatun lake while crossing the lake passengers can enjoy the scenic beauty of

panama

foreign once the boat reaches the end of the cut it is lowered using the reverse water passage method here is one The last fun fact is that these doors that you see They are called miter locks and were originally designed by the great Leonardo da Vinci about 500 years ago.

The brilliant design of miter locks automatically forms a tight joint. Mitral locks are huge, but you may know that Lasix is ​​in big trouble to maintain our educational service, please support us on Patreon. I would really appreciate it, thanks for watching the video, take care, bye.