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The Extreme Robot Arm That Can Chop Up a Ship
BBC ^ | Chris Baraniuk

Posted on 10/05/2023 10:01:00 PM PDT by nickcarraway

A huge robotic arm, wielding a waterjet powerful enough to slice through steel, swings into action.

It is chopping up the hull of a large ship. The structure, which withstood the power of the sea for decades, yields easily to the cutting jet. Before long, the robot has sliced out a big rectangle of steel.

Its task complete, the machine silently moves on to the next section. "You can have robots starting at the bow and the stern, and two points in the middle, and working towards each other," says Bryce Lawrence, operations director at Leviathan. The firm, based in Germany, plans to use a team of robots to dismantle huge ships so that the steel can be recycled.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Travel
KEYWORDS: robot; robotarm

1 posted on 10/05/2023 10:01:00 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Very cool! We need to mount those on battleships and do a Ginsu attack on enemy ships!


2 posted on 10/05/2023 10:14:40 PM PDT by DesertRhino (Dogs are called man's best friend. Moslems hate dogs. Add it up..)
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To: DesertRhino

Put them on the border and slice and dice invaders.


3 posted on 10/05/2023 11:08:31 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“Occupy your mind with good thoughts or your enemy will fill them with bad ones.” ~ Thomas More)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Good idea!


4 posted on 10/05/2023 11:11:04 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: DesertRhino

Don’t forget about aircraft while we’re at it!


5 posted on 10/05/2023 11:11:25 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: nickcarraway

Water jet? More like a sand jet.


6 posted on 10/06/2023 2:31:15 AM PDT by TalBlack (We have a Christian duty and a patriotic duty. God help us.)
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To: DesertRhino

The BBC article says this replaces “ fossil fuel-powered torches”. Though acetylene is a hydrocarbon, it is a manufactured product that merely contains carbon and hydrogen combined from other sources.

EC


7 posted on 10/06/2023 3:26:51 AM PDT by Ex-Con777
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To: nickcarraway
"..."Compared to traditional ship recycling, we're very, very low carbon," says Mr Lawrence as he explains how machinery at Leviathan's Stralsund facility on Germany's Baltic coast will be powered by electricity, not on-site fossil fuels, and that recovered steel will be transported to mills around Europe on electrified trains..."


8 posted on 10/06/2023 5:20:47 AM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
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To: rlmorel
...machinery at Leviathan's Stralsund facility on Germany's Baltic coast will be powered by electricity, not on-site fossil fuels...

So...by off-site fossil fuels? Sounds much better. /s

9 posted on 10/06/2023 5:26:33 AM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ([CTRL]-[GALT]-[DELETE])
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To: All

There is something seriously wrong with these people.

That they can come up with a way to create a high powered stream of water to cut metal is impressive.

But then they say in nearly the same breath that it is low carbon because it is running on electricity being generated somewhere else using fossil fuels (Some high percentage of which is lost in transmission to the site over high voltage transmission lines) so...not only is in not using less “fossil fuels” it is probably using more.


10 posted on 10/06/2023 5:29:58 AM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
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To: Mr. Jeeves

I know.

These are not un-intelligent people, if they can create a device to do this (although I also have questions about the effluent that would obviously be created during the cutting process, and where does THAT contaminated water full of contaminants go) but then revert to idiotic Leftist drivel that seems to indicate that electricity is created by the three-pronged wall outlet, instead of the powerplant tens or hundreds of miles away.

Crazy. It is things like this that indicate some kind of weird cult, religion or mass hypnosis has taken control of these people.

Oh, yeah.

It’s called “Leftism”.


11 posted on 10/06/2023 5:36:52 AM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
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To: nickcarraway

Seems unnecessary. We just fill old ships w/illegals and use them in live-fire exercises for the navy and coast guard.


12 posted on 10/06/2023 7:37:49 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: nickcarraway

three questions:

1. how fast does the robot water-jet cutter cut compared to a robot with an acetylene torch?

2. how much energy does the water-jet cutter used per foot cut vs how much energy is used per foot by an acetylene torch?

3. does the robot cutter have to be manually positioned and wielded by a worker when complex internal structural elements need to be deconstructed?

the answers to those three questions will tell you whether this whole robot water-jet scenario is economically feasible or whether they just took a picture of a robot water-cutter slicing a single small piece out of an external hull plate at dock level ...


13 posted on 10/06/2023 8:46:38 AM PDT by catnipman (A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil)
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To: nickcarraway

“electrified trains”? i assume they mean all-elecric battery-driven locomotives, because ALL current locomotives are hybrid diesel-electric and have been for over 70 years ...

btw, i wonder how many tender cars loaded with how many tons of batteries will be required for an all-electric train?


14 posted on 10/06/2023 8:50:08 AM PDT by catnipman (A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil)
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To: nickcarraway

Someone needs to tell Howie Wolowitz.


15 posted on 10/06/2023 4:34:39 PM PDT by Oldfishingpole
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