Thoughts on the Future of Urban/Civil Needs in Rock Mechanics The Future is Underground for Urban Infrastructure Devel

1. Thoughts on the Future of • Urban/Civil Needs in Rock Mechanics • The Future is Underground for • Urban Infrastructure Development • Rock is Difficult to Excavate in an Urban Environment • Often blasting is the least expensive alternative • ARMA/NSF 2000 Workshop:Underground Urban Rock Construction • To Peer into Future --- Think Logarithmically • Computation will decline in price and increase in speed exponentially, which will • spark unimaginable Miniaturization & Computerization • We’ve forgotten Nano • Water is the Next Oil • Water deficits may develop in Metropolitan Chicago • NEES for Rock • National Earthquake Experimentation System

2. The Future is Underground for Infrastructure Development in Congested Urban Environments Example: 9 Billion for increasing limited NJ-NYC commuter rail capacity

3. Urban Mass Transit is Expensive: • We have met the enemy and they are us!! • 98 % of those surveyed said that • they preferred mass transit for someone else • More people own pickup trucks than use mass transit • Price of 1 gal of gasoline • Belgium France Germany UK US • 6.36 6.11 6.53 5.53 2.47 • Why has the Federal Government propelled Chrysler-Fiat to bet the bank on fuel stingy engines when Federal policy doesn’t discourage consumption? • Policies that increase private transit efficiency allow increased use of private transit which allows more suburban sprawl and increases need for private transit (Jevon’s Paradox)

4. Exploration Design Excavation Support Prediction of penetration rates 1 m TBM to test cutter head performance Innovative means of rock cutting vibratory disks & disk + waterjet Directional drilling Coiled casing, reduce max radius of curvature Controlled blasting Auto feedback loops (pen rate -pf, vib–fragment size) Specific energy to explosively fragment Gas pressure vs shock ARMA/NSF 2000 Workshop Underground Urban Rock ConstructionCritically Needed Improvementsin Excavation (Blasting)

5. Excavate slot in tunnel beneath critical RR line for water line What is the least expensive means to excavate? Alternate Technologies: Trenching, Sawing, Splitting (mechanical, chemical)

6. Comparison of Excavation CostsAlternative Fragmentation/Excavation Showing Least Cost of Blasting & Importance of Drill Footage/Factor

7. To Peer into Future: Think Logarithmically “The Internet came out of nowhere” Even though we tend to extrapolate linearly or arithmetically (top plot of growth of internet hosts), technological growth is exponential (bottom plot of same data plotted in a logarithmic scale) (After Kurzweil)

8. $/transistor cycle => Total bits shipped => Calc/sec/$ 1,000 => DNA sequencing costs => (After Kurzweil)

9. Miniaturization & ComputerizationExamples of Innovation • Electronic Blasting Cap • Reduced potential timing errors by orders of magnitude • Increased security • More precise timing yields improved fragmentation Micro processors => orders of magnitude greater precision Eg: 1 millisecond at ten seconds into the delay sequence

10. Miniaturization & ComputerizationExamples of Innovation • Mine to Mill Fragmentation Tracking • Autonomous tracking • truck identification - batch identification • Photographic analysis of particle size distribution (image analysis) • Truck – post primary – post secondary (from SPLIT, Kemeny)

11. Complete Simulation of Complex Phenomena with coupled process, discrete models HSBC Hybrid Stress Blasting Code E.J. Sellers et al Fragblast 9 Granada, Spain

12. We’ve forgotten Nano: the frontier of miniaturization • Down Hole Condition Communicator • Combination RIF sensors: • see Kurzwell’s artificial blood cells • Pump down and retrieve

13. Water Is the Next Oil Water price policy and public perception are not aligned Price of Lake Michigan Water from my tap: $ 0.002/ gal Price of Lake Michigan Water from a plastic bottle: ~ $ 2.000/gal According to Brita, its high-end faucet filter system provides water for 18 cents a gallon, a considerable saving from $1 or more typically charged for an 8- to 12-ounce bottle of water. A recent survey of 14 countries indicates that average municipal water prices range from 66¢ per cubic meter (0.002$/gal) in the United States up to $2.25 in Denmark and Germany. Yet consumers rarely pay the actual cost of water. In fact, many governments practically (and sometimes literally) give water away for nothing. “Earth Policy Institute 2007”

14. 1985 Great Lakes Charter Prior notice of any diversion outside of basin that Exceeds 5,000,000 gal/day average over 30/days Gather data on diversions> 100,000 gal/day http://www.cglg.org/projects/water/docs/GreatLakesCharter.pdf

15. Projected Growth in Consumption http://www.nipc.org/environment/slmrwsc/Overview.htm http://www.growingsensibly.org/cmapdfs/TroubledWaters.pdf

16. References • Educause 2006:Ray Kurzweil • http://www.kurzweilai.net/ • SPLIT: John Kemeny • http://www.spliteng.com/downloads/Pit • ARMA: CH Dowding & P Smeallie • Rock Engr Issues: Urban Infrastructure 2000 • http://www.armarocks.org/Bookstore/