From Practical Engineering. The vast majority of our grid-scale storage of electricity uses this clever method. Electricity faces a fundamental problem that comes with pretty much any product that’s provided on-demand: our ability to generate large amounts of it doesn’t match up that closely with when we need it. The storage of electricity for later…

From Practical Engineering. Discussing some of the fascinating engineering that goes into overhead electric power transmission lines. Get $80 off your first month of HelloFresh (with code Practical80): https://bit.ly/2VGUxzl In the past, power generating plants were only able to serve their local areas. As power plants grew larger and further away from populated areas, the…

From Practical Engineering. Untangling the various equipment you might see in an electrical substation. Go to https://NordVPN.com/practicalengineering to get 75% off a 3 year plan. Use code PRACTICALENGINEERING to get an extra month for free. In many ways, the grid is a one-size-fits-all system – a gigantic machine to which we all connect spinning in…

From Practical Engineering. Continuing the series on the power grid by diving deeper into the engineering of large-scale electricity generation. Get $80 off your first month of Hello Fresh (with code Practical80): https://bit.ly/2VGUxzl The importance of electricity in our modern world can hardly be overstated. What was a luxury a hundred years ago is now…

From Practical Engineering. Go to https://NordVPN.com/practicalengineering to get 75% off a 3 year plan. Use code PRACTICALENGINEERING to get an extra month for free. The modern world depends on electricity. It’s a crucial resource, especially in urban areas, but electricity can’t be created, stored, and provided at a later time. The instant it’s produced, it’s…

From Practical Engineering. The first 500 people to click get 2 months of Skillshare Premium free: http://skl.sh/practicalengineering4 We normally build a dam to hold water back and store it for use in water supply, irrigation, hydropower, or flood control. But sometimes we have to let some water go. Whether we need it downstream or the…

From Practical Engineering. Start your Squarespace free trial at http://www.squarespace.com/practicalengineering and use code PRACTICALENGINEERING to get 10% off your first purchase. Traffic management in dense urban areas is an extremely complex problem with a host of conflicting goals and challenges. One of the most fundamental of those challenges happens at an intersection, where multiple streams…

From Practical Engineering. A quick overview of how we build underwater structures. Get $80 off your first month of Hello Fresh: https://bit.ly/2VGUxzl and use code practical80. Oceans, rivers, and lakes are often beautiful, but they’re not necessarily convenient places to build things. Yet, many types of the infrastructure we depend on every day, including wharves,…

From Practical Engineering. Start your Squarespace free trial today at http://www.squarespace.com/practicalengineering and use code PRACTICALENGINEERING to get 10% off your first purchase. Dams serve a wide variety of purposes from hydropower to flood control to storage of water for municipal and industrials uses. But when a dam’s useful purpose fades away, the structure itself still…

From Practical Engineering. The first 500 people will get two months of Skillshare Premium for FREE: https://skl.sh/practicalengineering3 A weir is a small dam built across a river to control the upstream water level. Weirs have been used for ages to control the flow of water in streams, rivers, and other water bodies. Unlike large dams…

From Practical Engineering. Go to https://NordVPN.com/practicalengineering to get 75% off a 3 year plan. Use code PRACTICALENGINEERING to get an extra month for free. Engineers need to be able to predict how water will behave in order to design structures that manage or control it. And fluids don’t always behave the way you’d expect. On…

From Practical Engineering. Purpose and function of elevated water storage tanks. The job of finding enough water, making it safe to use, and then reliably distributing it to the system customers with almost no downtime is a monumental task that requires a lot of infrastructure. And, probably the most visible component of a public water…

From Practical Engineering. Sometimes conventional reinforcement isn’t enough. The basics of prestressed concrete. Prestressing reinforcement doesn’t necessarily make concrete stronger. But, it does increase the serviceability of concrete members by reducing the amount of deflection under load. This video explains the two most common types of prestressed concrete: pre-tensioned and post-tensioned. Prestressed concrete is used…

From Practical Engineering. Comparing modern concrete to that of the western Roman empire. More Videos About Concrete: – What is Concrete? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOHURuAf5iY) – Why Concrete Needs Reinforcement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZINeaDjisY) -Does Rebar Rust? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLF18H9JGHs) In this video, I discuss a few modern techniques that help improve design life of concrete, including roller compacted concrete (RCC) and water…

From Practical Engineering. Check out the first two videos on concrete if you haven’t seen them already: – What is Concrete? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOHURuAf5iY) – Why Concrete Needs Reinforcement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZINeaDjisY) While steel reinforcement solves one of concrete’s greatest limitations, it creates an entirely new problem: Corrosion of embedded steel rebar is the most common form of concrete…

From Practical Engineering. Wind can be one of the most critical and complicated loads on civil structures. The case of the Tacoma Narrows bridge is a well-known cautionary tale that’s discussed in engineering and physics classrooms across the world. Both resonance from vortex shedding and aeroelastic flutter contributed to the failure. When you push the…