A concrete hockey puck the size of a small house

[wtmusic]

radius 15', height 10', and a concave bottom would weigh, after subtracting the water it displaces, about 300 tons.

Dredging barges are capable of lifting about 100 tons. If three barges were employed to plop said puck down on top of leaky well, would this not at least mitigate spillage until relief wells are drilled?

DU engineers? Anyone? :shrug:

[Lasher]

1. .

[Urban Prairie]

2. Supposedly there is around 1000' of silt and mud on the Gulf floor

Before reaching bedrock, so the crude oil and gas might still be able to escape through the porous, but now compressed mud underneath any 300T block. JMO.

[NYC_SKP]

3. Better idea:

If dropping a heavy object is any sort of solution, and I'm not sure it is.

Lower a mostly empty cylinder with a bottom, but also with the sides extending below the bottom over the BOP.

The extended sides would eventually push into the sea bed around the BOP, maybe 30 feet or further.

Radius 30-60', overall height 60'.

Then, begin to fill the open upward end of the cylinder with hydralic concrete or any material that is very dense and can be pumped.

This way, the restriction of 100 tons isn't an issue.

:shrug:

[obxhead]

7. that was pretty much the concept of the first top hat

with the exception of filling it with concrete instead of pumping out of it. Not a clue if it would work or not, I'm in no way an engineer.

[NYC_SKP]

8. True, except that Top Hat was going to allow continued extraction.

And the crystallizing methane hydrates prevented that from working, so they quit.

[obxhead]

9. correct. Every attempt to date has involved saving the well head

first, not stopping the spill at any cost.

[NYC_SKP]

11. Yep, even the current LMRP and the other option, "BOP on BOP".

I questioned this weeks ago.

Makes me fell ill.

:mad:

[wtmusic]

15. I like it NYC_SKP

If your cylinder is pushing down into sediment harder than 10,000 psi at any given point the well is sealed. It would have to happen relatively fast, before the oil had a chance to find an avenue around the edges.

Sometimes it seems either these guys aren't capable of thinking outside the box, or they are only considering options which will preserve their goddamn well.

[wtmusic]

17. If a 15'-radius cylinder is constructed from 1" steel plate

only about 6.75 ft² of steel (the rim of the cylinder) would be supporting the weight. 600 tons of concrete poured on top would cause it would sink until the silt/steel boundary had reached a pressure of over 1,200 psi, more than enough to seal the well.

An assumption would be that the density of the seafloor was relatively uniform, and I don't know whether that's a valid one.

[Lorien]

4. The planet saving diaphragm makes sense to me

if you can figure out a way for BP to profit from it they just may try it! :shrug:

[Warren Stupidity]

5. If this were a good idea it wouldn't have been plan 9.

just sayin'...

[walldude]

13. Yeah.. we're in ACME territory now...

Next they are going to strap a rocket to the Coyote and see if he can blast the leak to the moon..

[yella_dawg]

6. Lets say the static pressure at the wellhead is 10,000 psi.

Some estimates are ten times that, but whatever.


Radius of 15'. 180 inches. Pie are round, err, square. R = 90 inches. R squared = 8100. So that X 3.14159 = 25,443 sq inches.


25,443 sq inches X 10,000 pounds each = a tad over a quarter billion pounds or 127,000 tons of force. So make your block come up to the surface (~4250 feet above the sea floor) and it will work as long as there is no pressure fluctuations that make it burp.


The forces involved here are unimaginable.

[Blue_Tires]

10. great sig photo

lol

[On the Road]

12. The Suggestion is Not Bad

in that it seems like a heavier version of the top hat. The added weight would make it easier to overcome the forces that caused the top hat to fail.

My first concern would be with controlling such a large object a mile underwater. There were cables used for the top hat -- would much stronger cables be immediately available in lengths of 5000 feet?

And would there be difficulties with controlling the position of a larger object that far below the surface?

I don't know from an engineering point of view, but those were the questions that immediately came to mind.

[ThomWV]

14. The oil would blow out around the bottom in the soft sediment. Just a guess.

[quaker bill]

16. and a very good guess

well done.