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real life lore over the years humanity
has moved some truly colossal objects
across the surface of the earth for
example
the statue of liberty just outside new
york city was initially brought to
liberty island by boat from france in
1885.
it was shipped over in 350 pieces which
together
weighed over 225 tons which in all
honesty
is not that much at all that's only
about two trained cars worth of stuff
and obviously trains carry a lot more
cargo than just two trains worth
so the statue of liberty comes nowhere
close to being the heaviest object
ever transported across the world's
surface for that we have to go across
the atlantic
over to norway the troll a offshore gas
platform was built in 1996 and is
presently located 80 kilometers off the
coast of norway in the north sea
norwegian contractors for norskeshel
began construction of the offshore
platform back in 1991
at a fjord near the town of vots for a
cost of 650 million usd
normally large offshore platforms like
this one are either built on the
location
where they want them to be or they'll
tow the parts individually out to the
desired location
and assemble it on site but for the
troll a platform
they decided to do something a little
crazy they built
the entire structure off-site and then
towed the completed platform
all the way to the troll gas field the
field that produces nearly 40 percent
of all of norway's natural gas the only
problem was that the field is located
200 kilometers
off the norwegian coast in the middle of
the open ocean the platform stands at
472 meters tall
and weighs 683 600
tons which is a titanically massive
structure
this thing is even taller than the
patronus twin towers in malaysia which
are 452 meters tall and the 17th and
18th tallest buildings in the world
the troll a platform is also heavier
than seven
nimitz-class aircraft carriers all
combined the legs of the platform alone
are over 300 meters tall and have walls
that are over a meter
thick to withstand the immense pressures
at the bottom of the ocean
fabulously the legs were created by
continuously pouring concrete for over
100 days
non-stop so that there weren't any
joints or seams in them in order to
guarantee that they were completely
waterproof
then they were reinforced with enough
steel rebar to erect 15
eiffel towers the inside of the legs are
broken down into three
equal length watertight compartments and
each have an elevator that takes nine
minutes to go from top to bottom more
than enough time for you to watch this
entire
youtube video the four legs of troll a
are joined together by a reinforced
concrete box known as a cord shortener
that is to stop
any potentially dangerous resonance
frequencies inside of the legs
engineers designed this cord shortener
to make sure that the constant battering
from the ocean's waves would not
cause a catastrophic failure due to
vibrations like what happened to the
galloping gertie suspension bridge in
tacoma
in 1940 where high winds began to shake
the bridge violently enough that the
entire thing
collapsed into the sea after the legs
had finished construction they began
filling the legs with water to the point
where they were nearly submerged
they did this so they could float the
platform over the legs to attach them
together once the platform was floating
over the legs they began to pump water
out of the legs to slowly raise them
centimeters at a time
to the bottom of the platform overhead
the process of raising the legs took
over a day to complete before they could
attach the platform on top once the
platform was attached they continued to
remove more water out of the legs so
that the platform would stand
almost 100 meters above the water in
order to avoid the legs from hitting and
damaging any reefs along the journey
with the platform now
fully constructed they began to tow the
entire structure that now weighed 1.2
million tons with its ballast attached
the 200 kilometers to the troll gas
field
the average new panamax container ship
is only capable of carrying a cargo
weight up to 120
000 tons in order to transport the troll
a platform with ballast you would need
at least
10 of these new panamax ships to carry
the entire load
well once they started the tow took over
a week to
complete and used 10 tugboats to
maneuver the platform out of the fjord
where they had been constructing it in
and across the north sea to its final
destination
the towing operation was broadcast on
live norwegian tv and became a spectacle
at the time back in 1996.
once the platform had been towed to its
final destination over the gas field
they began to fill the legs back up with
water again until it was resting on the
seabed
303 meters down then they placed a total
of 19
40 meter tall vacuum anchors in the
seabed around the four legs of the
platform to prevent it from moving
with the anchors in place they began
pumping the water out of the legs again
and the troll a platform was finally in
place
after five years of construction and
going on a 200 kilometer long voyage
with the offshore gas platform now in
place it began to pump both natural gas
and oil out of the troll gas field the
troll a platform produces 138
000 barrels of oil a day and over 120
million cubic meters of natural gas a
day that's enough natural gas to fill
the epcot center at disney world over
1900 times
and can make over 65 000 gallons of
gasoline
every single day enough to completely
satisfy
all of norway's gasoline consumption
more than three
times over all of these resources are
presently sent directly back
to kohl's nests over 80 kilometers away
using underwater pipes and they do this
in only 84 seconds the troll a platform
is a true
engineering wonder due to its size and
the fact that it was transported over
200
kilometers it won the guinness world
record in 1996 for the heaviest object
ever moved by man
across the earth another world record
was set inside of the platform a decade
later by katie malua and her band when
they performed a concert
at the bottom of one of the legs of the
platform at the sea bed
303 meters beneath the surface
overall the troll 8 platform and how it
was moved across the earth is a work of
pure
problem-solving brilliance but in order
to pull it off
it required a solid understanding of
things like engineering
physics chemistry and a lot more things
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