The Odd Physical Properties of Mixtures of Air and Water
Richard Hammond today, in his program called Engineering Connections about the Space Shuttle, showed how NASA use a wall of water droplets to protect the shuttle and the launch platform from the immense sound waves created by the rocket engines on lift off. I have seen a shuttle launch and even some miles away the noise was awesome and in some ways the most unexpected part of the event.
If I ask an averagely serious engineer or physicist to tell me the speed of sound in air and also that in water, they will give answers of 343.2 and 1497 metres per second respectvely with various conditions like dry air and pure water. So sound travels a lot faster in water than air.
So if you have a mixture of bubbles of air in water or vice-versa, a logical person would think it lies somewhere between the two.
But they would be wrong! According to this paper from 1969, by D. McWilliam and R. K. Duggins, it can be as low as 18.2 metres per second. This creates all sorts of problems and benefits. NASA’s engineers used it in one way and I invested in a company that used it to make an aerosol valve.
But it is a property that hasn’t been used to the full.
They say that oil and water do not mix.
But I have seen an experiment where bubbles of air was introduced into a mixture of water and oil and the resulting mixture was passed through a choke or restriction. A creamy liquid emerged, because the air bubbles in the restriction in trying to get into some form of steady state, mixed evetrything up.
I know that explanation isn’t very good, but who cares as the technique works.
In places like Saudi Arabia, there are large lakes of tar, that are just dumped in the desert. Perhaps by using natural gas as the gas, could this pollution be burned, whilst it is still hot?
I don’t know! But I do know that this abnormal property of mixtures of gases and liquids is not used for all the applications it can be.
Onwards to Stratford High Street
I walked onwards from Three Mills towards the Olympic Park along the Three Mills Wall River, which is part of the River Lea.
It was an interesting walk with a lot to see.
You can’t actually reach Stratford High Street at the moment, becuse of construction work.
It looks like they will be encouraging spectators to walk to the Olympic Park from Bromley-by-Bow station along this route. They have put in quite a few places to have a picnic, which you could buy in Tesco’s at Bow.
Etchings in the Evening Sun
This picture shows the decoration on the new sewage pumping station at the Olympic Park, highlighted by the evening sun.
Decoration on the Olympic Park Sewage Pumping Station
The images are taken from the original drawings from Joseph Bazalgette’s Abbey Mills pumping station.
I hope that when the Olympic Park is fully open, buildings like this won’t be hidden behind excessive security fences.
A Final Good Bye TO EDF Energy – Hopefully!
When I Bought This house the electricity and gas supplier was EDF Energy. At the time I thought it would be a good idea to stick with them, as it might be less hassle to get them to continue to do the supply than change.
But after trying to get sense from EDF Energy, I signed up with nPower, as I detailed here. I set up Direct Debits too, soon after they changed the meter on the day they said they would, and at the time precisely.
In my original post, I did imply that Thames Water, tried to get aggressive in trying to sell me things I didn’t need. But I’ll forgive them that, as when I needed to read the water meter, the lady in the call centre told me in detail how to do it. They also gave me a free tour of Abbey Mills and the sewers with very good food afterwards.
Over the six months or so, I’ve got a lot of writs for the previous owners tenants. The biggest of which was for several hundred pounds from a company collecting on behalf of EDF Energy. It was from an agency in Glasgow, so I suspected someone from Alex Ferguson’s charm school to give me some form of hair-drying, when I phoned them. But I got a nice guy, who told me to forget the bill and shred it, after asking a few questions in a polite manner.
Nothing much happened until about two months ago, except for a series of mysterious calls on my mobile phone, which might be linked to EDF Energy.
I then got a bill from EDF Energy of £180.83, which on querying with them, they said was for the time whilst they were swapping everything over to nPower. I immediately queried it on the phone and I then got a reduced bill of £70.46, but I thought this was still too high as it ran from the 1st December 2010, when I didn’t move in until the 12th.
I was now dealing with them by e-mail and the e-mail said this.
If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me via my email.
So I did. Several times, in an attempt to get the bill adjusted to the 12th of December or full explanation of their calculations. Let’s face it there comes a point, where you don’t fight a bill of seventy quid any longer, as it just isn’t worth the effort. I also put it in a letter to them.
That point came on Thursday, when I sent them the money by bank transfer. But even that wasn’t as simple as paying other companies, as their bank, doesn’t accept the faster payments system, that virtually all others do. This excellent system means you get a certified receipt for a payment within a few minutes. Read about them here in the Guardian. If ever there was a reason for Internet banking, it’s this payment system.
It’s been debited from my bank account, so it’s somewhere in the system. It’s probably being processed in some overseas department of France, if they use a French bank.
I should say that their automated system phoned my mobile phone number, despite the fact that I told them I always deal with people over my landline. This automated system had no way getting a realperson and expected me to type in the twelve digits of my debit card number without making a mistake. I can do that easily on my large button landline phone, but not on my Nokia 6310i. Their automated system is about as customer friendly to someone with a small disability like me, as a unicycle. So in the end I hung up on them. They didn’t ring again. Surely that is wrong, as some other companies, will ring you back with a real person if the person accepting the call doesn’t seem to be responding properly.
Let’s hope that’s the end of it. I shall certainly not be recommending EDF Energy to any of my friends. As they say on Eurovision, they have earned nil points for Customer Service.
Any more calls from them and I’ll use the famous Sun headline from the 1970s or so.
We’re Really In It Now
I was also given a tour of part of the Northern Outfall Sewer at Hackney Wick.
These pictures were not taken by me, as you can see I was rather protected again the effluent from half of London’s drains and toilets.
Note the quality of the brickwork, which is over a hundred years old, with some nearly fifty years older than that!
It should also be noted, that I was breathing a lot better in the sewer. I suppose there isn’t much pollen down there!
I also didn’t have any problems walking in the almost thigh high water. You have to feel your way with your feet, but then I was taught to do this in industrial environments that may be dangerous, by Health and Safety when I worked for ICI in the 1960s. The only problem I had was that when I first got down there it took a couple of minutes for my eyes to be able to see things properly.
But I survived it with ease and the only thing I couldn’t do was take the photos. The photos incidentally were taken by Daniel, who has his own blog called The Sewerman’s Log. It’s an excellent well-written insight into the day-to-day happenings in London’s sewers and what it is really like to work up-to-your-waist in things that polite society doesn’t talk about. This post is a good place to start in his blog, as it gives a good summary of the problems and also gives an insight into how Dan Snow was kitted up for his recent television series.
A Visit To Abbey Mills
This week is Sewer Week and I had an invite to visit the pumping station at Abbey Mills.
These pictures were taken of the outside and inside of this cathedral of sewage.
Formula One Meets Victorian Technology
A few years ago, Thames Water had a problem. Under the pumping station are Victorian centrifugal pumps that pump raw sewage to Beckton works for treatment. These are connected to 1930s electric motors in Dalek-like structures on the ground floor, using heavy steel shafts. The motors are controlled from the control panel in the last image.
The shafts were showing signs of their age and needed replacement.
So Thames Water turned to the experts in high-power transmission at high speed – Formula One.
The pumps are now connected to the electric motors, using high-strength, lower-weight carbon-fibre shafts.
It was a fascinating visit and thanks to Thames Water, who made it all possible.
The 400th Anniversary of the Opening of London’s New River
You don’t get too many four hundredth anniversaries in the world, but in 2013, there will be an important one for London.
Melvin Bragg did a program on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible this year and he has been on television talking about it. But where is the program about the New River, which brings fresh water to London? And has done since 1613!
I was brought up in Southgate and cycling around the area as a child it was something you couldn’t avoid. I now live near its southern end and every time I go to the Angel, I see the statue of Hugh Myddelton on Islington Green.
The story of this great undertaking gets a good mention in Wikipedia, but surely the 400th anniversary deserves something more.
For a start, how many schools along the river are doing projects or having parties to celebrate the anniversary?
In some ways, the history of the river has lessons for the modern world, where water is such a precious commodity.
Surely, this anniversary is something that should interest someone like Griff Rhys Jones or Adam Hart Davis.
Unholy Water
There are reports on BBC London that Zam Zam water from Mecca containing arsenic is being sold in the UK. According to Wikipedia, Zam Zam water is prohibited from being exported from Saudi Arabia. So what does that mean about the water being sold in the UK?
I’ve never found any problems with London tap water.
Or is it just that religion gets people to do things, that their knowledge, intelligence or just common sense tells them is wrong? After all, transporting water half way around the world is an ecological crime anyway, as it generates just so much carbon dioxide.
But then many religions have been used by dodgy characters to fleece believers for thousands of years.
The Castle Climbing Centre
Ever since I started driving in London in the 1960s, i’ve been past this building on Green Lane.
The Castle Climbing Centre
Yesterday, I walked past the building, which was originally a Victorian pumping station and found that it is now an indoor climbing centre. What a good use for a magnificent building!
Northern Ireland Shoots the Messenger
It is being reported that the Chief Executive of Northern Ireland Water, Lawrence MacKenzie is being asked to step down.
It may be partly his fault, but as The Times said yesterday, non-privatisation and the consequent lack of investment is the real cause.
The Anonymous Widower 