Cool anthill sculpture

[kenny]

This Florida professor pours molten aluminum down anthills to document their structure.
Watch the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IugvemOyZY

 

[kenny]

This is even more amazing.
The underground structure for this ant species required 10-tons of concrete to fill ...

http://loiter.co/v/i-raise-your-molten-aluminum-anthill-with-a-10-ton/

 

[dragonfly411]

Very cool to see, but kinda sad for the ants.

 

[iLander]

Very cool, Kenny!

This is fascinating! The ants dig tunnels in a zig zag, possibly it's more structurally sound than the human "straight as an arrow" tunneling. I wonder if it's better for an unreinforced structure to go at angles? If the force is coming from above, it would dispel the force. OR would it? It must, they've had millions of years to work this out. A collapse in one section wouldn't necessarily affect other areas, while a straight tunnel would have contagious collapse issues.

Fascinating! I'll send this to various family members and we will spend weeks geeking out & trying to analyze the engineering and mechanical physics of this structure. There could be something really valid here. This could be the Thanksgiving topic this year.

Thanks!

 

[JewelFreak]

Well, neat, except for the ants. Makes me cringe to think of it.

 

[Indylady]

I've attended a lecture by this guy! So cool.

 

[dragonfly411]

Very cool, Kenny!

This is fascinating! The ants dig tunnels in a zig zag, possibly it's more structurally sound than the human "straight as an arrow" tunneling. I wonder if it's better for an unreinforced structure to go at angles? If the force is coming from above, it would dispel the force. OR would it? It must, they've had millions of years to work this out. A collapse in one section wouldn't necessarily affect other areas, while a straight tunnel would have contagious collapse issues.

Fascinating! I'll send this to various family members and we will spend weeks geeking out & trying to analyze the engineering and mechanical physics of this structure. There could be something really valid here. This could be the Thanksgiving topic this year.

Thanks!

The collapse idea is something I considered right away. If they zig and zag, then sand falling in wouldn't necessarily effect the other levels, also minimizing the amount of digging they have to do to repair the cave ins.

 

[CJ2008]

Very cool to see, but kinda sad for the ants.

Yeah