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Old Posted Oct 7, 2009, 11:07 PM
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Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid | Carbon Nanotubes - Robots - Air Dome Erecting - ETC



The Shimizu TRY 2004 Mega-City Pyramid is a proposed project for construction of a massive pyramid over Tokyo Bay in Japan. The structure would be 12 times higher than the Great Pyramid at Giza, and would house 750,000 people. If built, it will be the largest man-made structure on Earth. The structure would be 2,004 meters (6,575 feet) high and would answer Tokyo's increasing lack of space.

The proposed structure is so large that it cannot be built with currently available materials, due to their weight. The design relies on the future availability of super-strong lightweight materials based on carbon nanotubes.

Dimensions

Perimeter of the foundation above ground would be 2,000 meters. Area of the foundation is 8 square kilometres. Infrastructure is an area of approximately 25 km². Gross building area is about 88 km² of facilities layers:

Layers 1 to 4: residential, offices, etc.
Layers 5 to 8: research, leisure, etc.
The height of each layer is 250.5 m (for 8 layers, the pyramid is 2,004 m tall).

The pyramid structure would be composed of 55 smaller pyramids stacked five high. Each of these smaller pyramids would be about the size of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas.

Usage

The building would be zoned into residential, commercial and leisure areas. 50 km² will be given over to some 240,000 housing units, enough for 750,000 people. Each building would have its own energy resources (sun and wind). 24 km² will be assigned to offices and commercial facilities intended to employ 800,000 people. The remaining 14 km² would be used for research and leisure purposes.


Materials and construction process

First, the pyramid's foundation would be formed by 36 piers made of special concrete.

Because the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire cuts right through Japan, the external structure of the pyramid would be an open network of megatrusses, supporting struts made from carbon nanotubes to allow the pyramid to stand against and let through high winds, and survive earthquakes and tsunamis.

The trusses would be coated with photovoltaic film to convert sunlight into electricity and help power the city.

Large robots would assemble the truss structure, and air bladders would be used to elevate trusses above the first layer using a construction system proposed by Italian architect Dante Bini. Spheroid nodes at the connections between trusses would provide structural support and serve as transfer points for travellers.


Interior traffic and buildings

Transportation within the city would be provided by accelerating walkways, inclined elevators, and a personal rapid transit system where individual driverless pods would travel within the trusses.

Housing and office space would be provided by 80-story high skyscrapers suspended from above and below, and attached to the pyramid's supporting structure with nanotube cables.
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Old Posted Oct 7, 2009, 11:07 PM
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Old Posted Oct 8, 2009, 12:56 AM
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Now this is a cool idea.

Reminds me a lot of the NOAH project in New Orleans.
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Old Posted Oct 8, 2009, 4:08 AM
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Normally I'm not too crazy about these giant city-within-a-buildings, but I kinda like this one. Somehow it seems more serious than the NOAH project, more likely to happen in my opinion. Also, this is without question more necessary in Tokyo than in New Orleans. From what I can tell, they actually need the room. It doesn't seem to be one of these projects that tries so hard to be different and unique and edgy and stage-stealing, it seems like a pretty realistic extention of a megalopolis. Lastly, this new "city" would most likely not take away from the surrounding area as much as it would in a smaller region, and by that I mean people and offices simply relocating and leaving the old city more hollowed out. Just my two cents.
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Old Posted Oct 8, 2009, 8:43 PM
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Carbon Nanotubes

Stronger, Lighter, Safer

That pyramid built with steel would collapse under it's tremendous weight before it's completed, carbon nanotubes being lighter and stronger makes it more possible.

In addition, carbon nanotubes are far easier to shape and can even rebuild themselves which makes for less wear and tear.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology2.htm



Currently, scientists find two nano-size structures of particular interest: nanowires and carbon nanotubes. Nanowires are wires with a very small diameter, sometimes as small as 1 nanometer. Scientists hope to use them to build tiny transistors for computer chips and other electronic devices. In the last couple of years, carbon nanotubes have overshadowed nanowires. We're still learning about these structures, but what we've learned so far is very exciting.

A carbon nanotube is a nano-size cylinder of carbon atoms. Imagine a sheet of carbon atoms, which would look like a sheet of hexagons. If you roll that sheet into a tube, you'd have a carbon nanotube. Carbon nanotube properties depend on how you roll the sheet. In other words, even though all carbon nanotubes are made of carbon, they can be very different from one another based on how you align the individual atoms.

With the right arrangement of atoms, you can create a carbon nanotube that's hundreds of times stronger than steel, but six times lighter [source: The Ecologist]. Engineers plan to make building material out of carbon nanotubes, particularly for things like cars and airplanes. Lighter vehicles would mean better fuel efficiency, and the added strength translates to increased passenger safety.

Carbon nanotubes can also be effective semiconductors with the right arrangement of atoms. Scientists are still working on finding ways to make carbon nanotubes a realistic option for transistors in microprocessors and other electronics.

What's the difference between graphite and diamonds? Both materials are made of carbon, but both have vastly different properties. Graphite is soft; diamonds are hard. Graphite conducts electricity, but diamonds are insulators and can't conduct electricity. Graphite is opaque; diamonds are usually transparent. Graphite and diamonds have these properties because of the way the carbon atoms bond together at the nanoscale.




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Old Posted Oct 9, 2009, 12:14 AM
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why does this video take so long to load
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Old Posted Oct 11, 2009, 8:07 PM
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Nanotube, heal thyself

http://nanosingularity.wordpress.com...-heal-thyself/



Pound for pound, carbon nanotubes are stronger and lighter than steel, but unlike other materials, the miniscule cylinders of carbon – which are no wider than a strand of DNA – remain remarkably robust even when chunks of their bodies are blasted away with heat or radiation. A new study by Rice University scientists offers the first explanation: tiny blemishes crawl over the skin of the damaged tubes, sewing up larger holes as they go.

“The shape and direction of this imperfection does not change, and it never gets any larger,” said lead researcher Boris Yakobson, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of chemistry. “We were amazed by it, but upon further study we found a good explanation. The atomic irregularity acts as a kind of safety valve, allowing the nanotube to release excess energy, in much the way that a valve allows steam to escape from a kettle.”

The research appears Feb. 16 issue of in Physical Review Letters.

Carbon nanotubes are hollow cylinders of pure carbon that measure about a billionth of a meter, or one nanometer, across. They are much longer than they are wide, akin in shape to 100-foot garden hose, and they’re 100 times stronger than steel at one-sixth the weight.

The carbon atoms in nanotubes are joined together in six-sided hexagons, so when scientists sketch out the arrangement on paper, nanotubes look something like a rolled up tube of chicken wire. Yakobson’s “smart repair machine” is a deformity, a blemish in this pattern. The blemish consists of a five-sided pentagon joined to a seven-sided heptagon and contains a total of ten atoms. Yakobson, who specializes in using computers to decipher the atomic pecularities of materials, discovered several years ago that mechanically stressed nanotubes – like those being pulled very hard from both ends – are predisposed to develop these 5/7-defects due to the complex interplay of thermodynamic forces at work in the nanotube.

In the latest study, Yakobson, research associate Feng Ding and students examined the effects of other types of stress, including exposure to heat and radiation. The tests confirmed the predisposition of nanotubes to develop the 5/7 blemishes, and they revealed the blemishes’ unexpected healing powers.

“The 5/7-blemishes move across the surface of the nanotube like a steamship, giving off puffs of carbon gas,” said Ding. “In their wake, the skin of the tube appears pristine, in its characteristic hexagonal arrangement.”

Yakobson said the blemishes consume all larger defects, and chug along indefinitely, rearranging atoms and healing the skin of the damaged nanotubes. This explains how nanotubes retain their strength, even when severely damaged. But the healing comes with a price.

“In their role as a safety valve, the 57-steamers give off energy and mass, which is released as pairs of gaseous carbon atoms,” Yakobson said. “Since they never change shape or stop moving, they ever so slowly eat away the surface of the nanotube, one pair of atoms at a time.”

Yakobson said the 5/7-blemishes turn when they reach the end of the nanotube and return in the opposite direction. In fact, there’s only one thing that can stop them: another 5/7 blemish. If two of the blemishes run headlong into one other, they cancel each other out and disappear.

Source: Rice University
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Old Posted Oct 23, 2009, 7:57 PM
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Carbon nanotubes may cheaply harvest sunlight

http://www.physorg.com/news175182633.html



(PhysOrg.com) -- A new alternative energy technology relies on the element most associated with climate change: carbon.

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are studying how to create inexpensive, efficient solar cells from carbon nanotubes, which are sheets of carbon rolled into seamless cylinders one nanometer in diameter. Many researchers are studying how to use nanotubes for mechanical and electronics applications, but materials science and engineering assistant professor Michael Arnold is one of the first to apply them to solar energy.

"We are developing new materials and methods to create scalable, inexpensive, stable and efficient photovoltaic solar cell technologies," Arnold says. "Semiconducting carbon nanotubes have remarkable electronic and optical properties that are ideally suited for photovoltaics, so they are an interesting starting point."

Carbon is a promising choice for solar cells because it is an abundant, inexpensive element, and carbon nanotubes have excellent electrical conductivity and strong optical absorptivity. Most current solar cells use silicon, which converts 10 to 30 percent of sunlight absorbed into electricity. This is a good rate, but silicon cells are expensive.

"The cost is upfront for silicon cells, and the cost per kilowatt-hour is five times more than you'd pay for coal over 20 years — that's not very motivating for people," says Arnold. With carbon nanotubes, he hopes to achieve efficiency comparable to silicon solar cells for less cost.

Arnold says solar is a valuable energy source since the sun outputs approximately 1,000 watts per square yard. A solar cell that is only 20 percent efficient would generate about 200 watts per square yard on a sunny day, so coating the roof of an average 40-square yard house with solar cells would make a significant dent in the average energy needs of the household. To have an effect on the national electric grid, Arnold envisions expansive fields of solar cells built in desert regions.

"Solar is a viable technology for producing energy," Arnold says. "It's just too expensive right now."

To create the new carbon nanotube solar cells, Arnold and his students grow nanotube structures and then separate the useful semi-conducting nanotubes from undesirable metallic ones. They also separate the tubes according to diameter, which determines a particular nanotube's bandgap, or wavelength of light the tube can absorb. Certain bandgaps are more suitable than others for absorbing sunlight.

After sorting out the useful nanotubes, the team wraps them in a semi-conducting polymer to make the tubes soluble. They turn the combined nanotubes and polymer into a solution, which can be sprayed in a thin film onto transparent indium-tin-oxide coated glass substrates. The researchers then deposit an electron-accepting semiconductor and a negative electrode on top of the nanotubes to complete the entire cell.

In creating the new solar cells, Arnold, who is funded by the National Science Foundation, is attempting to answer a variety of fundamental science and research questions. He is studying how charge is generated in the nanotubes in response to light and how different electron-accepting materials affect the efficiency and speed of the separation of that charge.

"The driving question is, can we understand how to both process the tubes to get the morphology we want, and can we also learn how light creates charges in our carbon nanotube materials and how these charges separate?" he says.
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Old Posted Oct 24, 2009, 9:54 AM
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I have zero doubt that this "project" is not meant as a serious proposal for urban architecture.

The sensational (marketing) sketch DOES raise attention though to what might be possible with nano technology. It curbs the interest to all things Nano.
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Old Posted Nov 8, 2009, 2:58 AM
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its worth noting that the Megapyramid shown on the Discovery Channel is MUCH smaller than the original version!

with the base, the Discovery version is 5 piramids tiers tall (and thus, 5x5 at the base). Not even close to the 2004 meter high that gives the original name to the Shimizu Megapyramid: Try-2004.


here is the original version... 8x8 at the base, and 8 pyramid tiers tall
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  #11  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2010, 10:27 PM
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disgraceful design....
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Old Posted Jul 29, 2010, 11:40 PM
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imho, its an awesome design.
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Old Posted Jul 29, 2010, 11:43 PM
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imho, its an awesome design.
sorry im just not into the whole suspended skyscrapers inside a pyramid thing...
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Old Posted Jul 30, 2010, 1:54 AM
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sorry im just not into the whole suspended skyscrapers inside a pyramid thing...
It's kind of weird. I think there's got to be a better way of breaking up building mass into more managable chunks.
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  #15  
Old Posted May 4, 2013, 9:52 AM
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Copyright?

Can i ask a question? What if i use this design, for not my personal use, for a public?
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  #16  
Old Posted May 6, 2013, 10:34 PM
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Tokyo is endangered by earthquakes and tsunamis. So is it really a good idea to build it there?
How expensive is the production of carbon nanotubes? Will it be not a problem to produce them in the required quantity
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  #17  
Old Posted May 7, 2013, 7:22 AM
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Can i ask a question? What if i use this design, for not my personal use, for a public?
Please reply
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