Pile Buck's Specifications Blog

Liebherr Crane CONEXPO 2011 Las Vagas

2011-05-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

CONEXPO 2011

2011-04-28T04:22:00.000-07:00

Have a great weekend!

2011-04-22T17:21:00.000-07:00

Secret Life of Scientists & Engineers (NOVA Science Now-PBS)

2011-04-11T23:34:00.000-07:00

Secret Life of Scientists & Engineers (NOVA Science Now-PBS)

Liebherr Crane, Link-Belt CONEXPO 2011 Las Vagas

2011-04-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

Link-Belt CONEXPO 2011-Medium.m4v

2011-04-03T22:42:00.000-07:00

Japanese Ship Rides Tsunami Waves

2011-03-29T16:57:00.001-07:00

http://www.usatoday.com/video/index.htm?bctid=840038944001&csp=taboola#/Raw+video/Raw+Video%3A+Japanese+ship+rides+Tsunami+waves/42804638001/43574941001/840038944001

May-3-4-Micropile-Seminar-with-Exhibits---Little-Rock--AR.

2011-03-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/May-3-4-Micropile-Seminar-with-Exhibits---Little-Rock--AR.html?soid=1103611975335&aid=KhCu_mXlTz8

Liebherr Crane CONEXPO 2011 Las Vagas.mov

2011-03-28T02:36:00.000-07:00

Pile Buck's Link-Belt Video Conexpo Las Vegas 2011

2011-03-27T01:36:00.000-07:00

How to Do a Pile Driver

2011-03-10T15:24:00.000-08:00

How an Engineer folds a T-Shirt

2011-03-02T00:18:00.000-08:00

The Great Slinky

2011-02-28T21:51:00.000-08:00

Astronomers find magnetic Slinky in Orion

The Orion Molecular Cloud superimposed on the Orion constellation, with the orange star Betelgeuse at the top corner and Rigel at the bottom. The inset shows the Slinky-like coils of the helical magnetic field surrounding the filamentary cloud.(Credit: Saxton, Dame, Hartmann, Thaddeus; NRAO/AUI/NSF)

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations

BERKELEY – Astronomers announced on Jan. 12 2006 what may be the first discovery of a helical magnetic field in interstellar space, coiled like a snake around a gas cloud in the constellation of Orion "You can think of this structure as a giant, magnetic Slinky wrapped around a long, finger-like interstellar cloud," said Timothy Robishaw, a graduate student in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. "The magnetic field lines are like stretched rubber bands; the tension squeezes the cloud into its filamentary shape." Astronomers have long hoped to find specific cases in which magnetic forces directly influence the shape of interstellar clouds, but according to Robishaw, "telescopes just haven't been up to the task ... until now." The findings provide the first evidence of the magnetic field structure around a filamentary-shaped interstellar cloud known as the Orion Molecular Cloud.

The announcement by Robishaw and Carl Heiles, UC Berkeley professor of astronomy, was made during a presentation at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, D.C. Interstellar molecular clouds are the birthplaces of stars, and the Orion Molecular Cloud contains two such stellar nurseries - one in the belt and another in the sword of the Orion constellation. Interstellar clouds are dense regions embedded in a much lower-density external medium, but the

"dense" interstellar clouds are, by Earth standards, a perfect vacuum. In combination with magnetic forces, it's the large size of these clouds that makes enough gravity to pull them together to make stars. Astronomers have known for some time that many molecular clouds are filamentary structures whose shapes are suspected to be sculpted by a balance between the force of gravity and magnetic fields. In making theoretical models of these clouds, most astrophysicists have treated them as spheres rather than finger-like filaments. However, a theoretical treatment published in 2000 by Drs. Jason Fiege and Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University suggested that when treated properly, filamentary molecular clouds should exhibit a helical magnetic field around the long axis of the cloud. This is the first observational confirmation of this theory. "Measuring magnetic fields in space is a very difficult task," Robishaw said, "because the field in interstellar space is very weak and because there are systematic measurement effects that can produce erroneous results." The signature of a magnetic field pointing towards or away from the Earth is known as the Zeeman effect and is observed as the splitting of a radio frequency line. "An analogy would be when you're scanning the radio dial and you get the same station separated by a small blank space," Robishaw explained. "The size of the blank space is directly proportional to the strength of the magnetic field at the location in space where the station is being broadcast." The signal, in this case, is being broadcast at 1420 MHz on the radio dial by interstellar hydrogen - the simplest and most abundant atom in the universe. The transmitter is located 1750 light years away in the Orion constellation.

The antenna that received these radio transmissions is the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT), operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The telescope, 148 meters (485 feet) tall and with a dish 100 meters (300 feet) in diameter, is located in West Virginia where 13,000 square miles have been set aside as the National Radio Quiet Zone. This allows radio astronomers to observe radio waves coming from space without interference from

man made signals.

Using the GBT, Robishaw and Heiles observed radio waves along slices across the Orion Molecular Cloud and found that the magnetic field reversed its direction, pointing towards the Earth on the upper side of the cloud and away from it on the bottom. They used previous observations of starlight to inspect how the magnetic field in front of the cloud is oriented. (There is no way to gain information about what's happening behind the cloud since the cloud is so dense that neither optical light nor radio waves can penetrate it.) When they combined all available measurements, the picture emerged of a corkscrew pattern wrapping around the cloud. "These results were incredibly exciting to me for a number of reasons," Robishaw said. "There's the scientific result of a helical field structure. Then, there's the successful measurement: This type

of observation is very difficult, and it took dozens of hours on the telescope just to understand how this enormous dish responds to the polarized radio waves that are the signature of a magnetic field."

The results of these investigations suggested to Robishaw and Heiles that the GBT is not only unparalleled among large radio telescopes for measuring magnetic fields, but it is the only one that can reliably detect weak magnetic fields. Heiles cautioned that there is one possible alternative explanation for the observed magnetic field structure: The field might be wrapped around the front of the cloud. "It's a very dense object," Heiles said. "It also happens to lie inside the hollowed-out shell of a very large shock wave that was formed when many stars exploded in the neighboring constellation of Eridanus."

That shock wave would have carried the magnetic field along with it, he said, "Until it reached the molecular cloud! The magnetic field lines would get stretched across the face of the cloud and wrapped around the sides. The signature of such a configuration would be very similar to what we see now. What really convinces us that this is a helical field is that there seems to be a constant pitch angle to the field lines across the face of the cloud." However, the situation can be clarified by further research. Robishaw and Heiles plan to extend their measurements in this cloud and others using the GBT. They will also collaborate with Canadian colleagues to use starlight to measure the field across the face of this and other clouds. "The hope is to provide enough evidence to understand what the true structure of this magnetic field is," said Heiles. "A clear understanding is essential in order to truly understand the processes by which molecular clouds form stars in the Milky Way galaxy."

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

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Slinky Patent

SLINKY A Visualization Tool for Initial Value Problems

University of Maryland Special thanks go to Brian Michalowski for this feature. karogers@glue.umd.edu

Slinky and Shear Slinky were developed by Kathleen A. Hoffman and Randy C. Paffenroth at the Institute for Physical Science and Technology's Numerical Analysis Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. The programs were developed within the AVS graphical environment.

Shear Slinky

Slinky

Slinky and Shear Slinky are graphical tools for investigating solutions of initial value problems for ordinary differential equations. The codes were developed for a particular systems of ordinary differential equations that model the equilibria of elastic rods, and the rest of this page will describe the packages in that context. However simple modifications would allow other systems to be investigated too. The basic idea of the packages is to interactively send initial values to an ODE IVP solver (in this case the implementation of an Adams Pece method as described in the book Computer Solution of Ordinary Differential Equations: The Initial Value Problem by L.F. Shampine and M.K. Gordon) from within a graphics package and to visualize various `projections' of the associated trajectories.

The motivation for the development of slinky and shear slinky is an interest in using an elastic rod model to approximate the super coiling of DNA molecules. Members of the Numerical Analysis Laboratory are involved in a number of related projects including dynamic models, but slinky deals with statics. Within static models, boundary value problems also arise but slinky deals with initial value problems only. Slinky models an unshearable inextensible rod, and shear slinky models an extensible shear able rod. The configuration space in the elastic rod model used in Slinky comprises a curve with an associated frame that evolves with the arch length of the curve. The `moving' frame consists of a set of three directors which give information about the orientation of the cross section of the rod. One of the directors that is normal to the curve is used to construct a ribbon to help visualize the twist in the rod. Slinky colors the curve, or center line, green, the ribbon blue, and the director axes white. One of Slinky's features it that it can animate the directors moving along the arc length of the curve. The equilibrium equations solved by Slinky are a set of first order ordinary differential equations that are of Hamiltonian form. In these equations of `motion' evolution is with respect to arc length as the independent variable.

The current version of Slinky only allows uniform rods. The coefficients in the system of ODEs are therefore constant. The

constants are related to the unstressed configuration of the rod and shape and orientation of the cross section of the rod. The moments of inertia and physical constants such as the Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio, combine to form the stiffness parameters labelled K1, K2, and K3, respectively. The parameters labelled `u-hat' described the unstressed configuration of the rod. The actual input in the program are the radius and pitch of a helix. Slinky then transforms these parameters to the appropriate unstressed bending and twisting parameters. These coefcients form part of the parameter space. The particular choice of initial conditions completes the parameter space. For instance, the configuration variable's initial condition is always fixed at the origin. The initial orientation of the directors is controlled by two angles input by the user. The initial forces also need to be specified. For this particular application, we have chosen to embed the forces so that only one component, namely, the first component is nonzero. The user also has control over the length of the rod that is displayed. The parameter space breaks down into two categories, the integrable case and the non-integrable case. In the integrable case, the two moments of inertia of the cross sections of the rod are equal. This is, K1=K2. The unstressed configuration of the rod must be straight as well. Concomitantly, the parameters describing the radius and pitch of the unstressed helix are zero. The configuration space of this case can be described as a helix upon a helix. In fact for this case the IVP can be solved by quadrature (see Shi and Hearst, The Kirchhoff Elastic Rod, the Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation, and DNA Supercoiling, Journal of Chemical Physics, vol.101, number 6, 1994, for example) The centerline of the rod is confined within two cylinders. Viewing the rod along the long axis of the cylinder, it appears that the solutions are wrapped on a torus. The non-integrable case does not place any restrictions on the parameters. The resulting solutions do not have the same structure as with the integrable case, but some periodicity can be seen. Slinky is designed to be able to compute all cases. Shear Slinky is an analogous program for shearable, extensible elastic rods. Shearing describes lateral movement of the cross section across arc length. The shearability parameters used by Shear Slinky measure the shear in the principal axes of the cross section. The extensibility parameter measures how much the arc-length of the rod will either extend or contract under a force or torque. Thus Shear Slinky has three extra parameters in its parameter space. The unshearable, inextensible rod, which Slinky deals with, always has the third director tangent to the rod. This is not the case for the shearable extensible case. Thus in Shear Slinky we have added a magenta tangent vector , whose magnitude is a measure of the shear and extensibility of the rod. Special thanks to Brian Michalowski for this feature.

karogers@glue.umd.edu

Last modified: Wed Jul 26 10:03:41 1995

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Happy President's Day

2011-02-20T19:41:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Winter 2004, Vol. 36, No. 4

By George, IT IS Washington's Birthday!

By C. L. Arbelbide
Prologue Magazine
magazine of

The National Archives

www.gov.org

http://www.archives.gov/research

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.html

Historic dates, like stepping stones, create a footpath through our heritage. Experienced by one generation and recalled by those to come, it is through these annual recollections that our heritage is honored. In 1879 the Forty-fifth Congress deemed George Washington's birth date, February 22, a historic date worthy of holiday recognition. Washington was a man of his time: a farmer, a soldier, and an owner of slaves. Named commander-inchief of the American Continental army, he led the colonies to victory over England, securing independence for an infant nation. His political leadership led to his election as the president of the 1787

Constitutional Convention. Once the states ratified the Constitution, he was elected the first President of the United States, completing two terms. Everything about George Washington was entwined with the evolution of a young nation. His name was associated with virtue, honesty, strength, courage, and patriarchal leadership. Schools, bridges, towns, the national capital, and even a state were named in his honor.

His likeness graced currency, stamps, sculptures, and paintings. Manufacturers deemed his image as public property. Historian William Ayres has stated that Washington must "surely hold the record for the number of times the image of a historical figure appeared on goods made for the American home."

At six-feet, two and a half inches tall, Washington's presence enhanced his political stature. Succeeding generations found significant ways to periodically resurrect his memory, including the centennial birthday celebration of 1832 and the laying of the Washington Monument's cornerstone sixteen years later (1848). Close on the heels of the national centennial celebration of 1876, a patriotic colonial revival followed and, before the end of the century, a centennial observance of his death in 1899. With the 1930s carving of his likeness in stone on Mount Rushmore and the posthumous promotion to the rank of six-star General of the Armies in 1976, the numerous tributes continued to reaffirm George Washington's place in history.

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http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/

The Waterfront of New Orleans

2011-01-26T19:40:00.000-08:00

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Shere

2011-01-26T18:44:00.000-08:00

www.pilebuck.com

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亜共栄圏 Dai-tō-a Kyōeiken) was a concept, created and promulgated during the Showa Era by the government and military of the Empire of Japan, to represent the desire to create a self-sufficient "block of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers".
The Sphere was initiated by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, in an attempt to create a Great East Asia, comprising Japan, Manchukuo, China, and parts of Southeast Asia, that would, according to imperial propaganda, establish a new international order seeking ‘co prosperity’ for Asian countries which would share prosperity and peace, free from Western colonialism and domination. Military goals of this expansion included naval operations in the Indian Ocean and the isolation of Australia.
This was one of a number of slogans and concepts used in the justification of Japanese aggression in East Asia in the 1930s through the end of World War II, and the term "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" is remembered today largely as a front for the Japanese control of occupied countries during World War II, in which puppet governments manipulated local populations and economies for the benefit of Imperial Japan.
Japan's experiment with financial imperialism has been called "yen diplomacy" or the "yen bloc," and encompassed both official and semi-official colonies. In the period between 1895, when Taiwan was annexed, and 1937, which marked the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, monetary specialists in Tokyo directed and managed programs of coordinated monetary reforms in Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria, and the peripheral Japanese-controlled islands in the Pacific. These reforms were intended to foster a network of linked political and economic relationships. These efforts foundered in the eventual debacle of the Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
The negative connotations that many still associate with the term "Greater East Asia" (大東亜) remains one of a number of difficulties facing the annual East Asia Summits, begun in 2005, to discuss the possibility of the establishment of a stronger, more united East Asian Community.

Pile Buck's Specifications Blog: Marine articles

2011-01-16T22:57:00.001-08:00

Pile Buck's Specifications Blog: Marine articles

Huey Long Bridge

2011-01-16T22:47:00.000-08:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/sm.smoot/HueyLongBridge?feat=directlink

Huey Long Bridge

2011-01-16T22:39:00.000-08:00

info@pilebuck.com

2011-01-02 Cranes at Sunset

2011-01-10T19:03:00.000-08:00

Photos by Gregory T Geniusz

2011-01-02 Huey P Long Bridge

2011-01-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

photo by Gregory T. Geniusz

Marine articles

2011-01-06T20:01:00.000-08:00