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Document summary:
- Title: Building A Future - The Canadian Society for Civil Engineering annual conference - June 2000.
- Author: Said Easa
- Source: http://www.civil.ryerson.ca/Staff_Fac/publications/Easa/building_a_future.htm
- Copyright: Canadian Consulting Engineer
- Date: October/November 2000
Building A Future
About 600 people from 15 countries gathered in London, Ontario in June for the annual conference of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE). The three-day event included over 60 workshops to discuss important advances in tackling civil engineering challenges. There were four parallel specialty streams: environmental, structural, transportation, and general.
"Building Canada for the third millennium," was the conference theme. One of the most intriguing sessions that took this futuristic approach was in the transportation stream.
The workshop on capsular and pneumatic pipeline systems led by Henry Liu, director of the Capsule Pipeline Research Center at the University of Missouri-Columbia, looked at some exciting potential new uses and adaptations of an old technology.
Pneumatic pipeline systems (transporting uncontained solids through pipelines using air or another gas as the carrier) have been used for two centuries for transporting cement powder, grain, flyash, and other materials, and recently for domestic solid waste. Disney World in Florida, for example, uses a pneumatic system to collect trash deposited at various disposal points. A potential application of these systems is the transport of household refuse. "Some Japanese and European cities already have such systems in modern apartment complexes," said Liu.
Capsule pipelines transport solid freight in capsules that may be vehicles, containers, or log-shaped solid objects moving through a circular pipeline. The capsule is propelled by either a gas (pneumatic capsule pipeline or PCP), or a liquid (hydraulic capsule pipeline or HCP).
Traditionally, pneumatic capsule pipeline has been used for the short distance transport of mail, parcels, and other relatively light objects. In the future, however, we may see the technology applied in large systems for interstate freight transport, and where it will be used to move general cargo. The cargo would be moved in rectangular ducts or conduits instead of circular pipes to aid the loading of boxes, pallets, and crates. Henry Liu, explained that the systems will also use linear induction motors not only for pumping, but also for capsule injection, ejection, acceleration, braking, and control. "It will be a highly electro-pneumatic system," he said.
Hydraulic capsule pipeline, a relatively new concept, uses watertight containers. Unlike the pneumatic version, hydraulic capsule containers do not require wheels because they are suspended by both the buoyancy of the liquid in the pipe and a hydrodynamic lift force. Before such systems can he smoothly used for commercial applications, however, the design and handling of capsules must be carefully studied.
Extensive use of pipeline systems will aid freight movement and reduce the number of trucks on highways, thus improving mobility, safety, and the environment. "It is easy to see and predict that capsular pipelines will blossom forth in the 21st century in the form of utilities," said another presenter, Peter Weaver, president of Toronto-based Pneutrans Systems.
"With 21st century technology; capsular pipelines will do things and go places not dreamed of today;" he added.
(...)
Said Easa, P.Eng., is professor and chair of civil engineering at Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto. He was chair of the CSCE transportation specialty conference and secretary of the chairs/heads forum discussed above.