Showerthought: The aquarium downtown made me think about glass thickness differently

I took my niece to the city aquarium yesterday and stood in front of their big shark tank for a while. It's a huge panel, maybe 30 feet wide, and you can see a tiny curve at the very edges. It hit me that the water pressure must be insane, and the glass has to be way thicker than anything we do in houses. I always just follow the charts for residential stuff, but seeing it in person made the engineering click. Has anyone here ever worked on a big commercial tank like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

eva6668d ago

Overrate the danger honestly, it's just a big fish tank. The engineers know what they're doing and the safety margins are huge. People get way too dramatic about the what-ifs.

grayh608d ago

Wasn't there a documentary or something about how they built that massive tank in Georgia? I remember them talking about how each pane of acrylic was like multiple feet thick and they had to ship them on special trucks. It's wild when you realize that little curve you see is basically the only thing holding back a total disaster. Makes you appreciate the math that goes into it. I'd be way too nervous to work on one of those, a tiny mistake would be a huge problem.