The Engineering Marvel called Panama Canal

did you know that a simple drought in the Panama region could cease the operation of the great Panama Canal this Marvel of civil engineering uses a clever locking arrangement to lift passing ships by almost 20 meters in order to safely transport them across the canal to materialize this smart Canal lock system a super fast concreting technology was needed look at the giant T cranes the American engineers invented they were moved by steam locomotives and did you notice a small house sitting above the crane interestingly the steam engine inside this house was able to lift a

bucket filled with concrete and also control its movement accurately this steam-powered cable pulley mechanism delivered the bucket to its destination much faster than manual material transportation the way it dumped the concrete was also quite innovative you might have already noticed how this 100 year old invention was able to move the concrete bucket in all three directions the Americans invented many more incredible machines to complete the Panama Canal project successfully but the question is why is this canal project so important if you can connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via water the ships can save a

travel distance of 20 000 kilometers the best location to achieve the canal dream is a narrow region in the country of Panama Panama is a stunning country with very rugged terrain this cross section of the land is proof of that the most obvious solution is to Simply dig all of this out allowing the oceans on both sides to rush in and connect so ships can continue their voyage the French tried this exact method in 1892 and failed miserably landslides torrential rain and disease were the main problems removal of the earth took almost eight years and

killed nearly 22 thousand people as a result the project was eventually abandoned the Americans came up with a brilliant idea why should you dig the Earth completely just remove a portion of these huge mountains and flood the entire length of land with water keep watching to learn how they filled only a small width with water without flooding the entire country of Panama as you can clearly see as long as the ship is raised onto this new elevated water surface it can easily cross Panama but how exactly did they make it possible to raise a heavy

ship to this new water level Engineers relied on this simple trick if an object can float on water just by increasing the water level it will be lifted up to implement this trick we must first install three gates at the entrance of the Panama Canal assume the first gate is open the ship enters the region between the two gates now close the first gate and open this valve the water from the second chamber is released both the water level and the ship will automatically rise once the water levels are equal open the second gate so

that the ship can effortlessly enter the next chamber now close the second gate and do one more water leveling after a few more water levelings the ship can now enter the raised water platform effortlessly just like that the ship can continue on its long journey through this fantastic shortcut through Panama when the ship reaches the end of the canal it must be lowered to sea level again in order to accomplish this simply perform the same water leveling technique in the exact opposite sequence the ship has been lowered to the ocean level in this genius this

raising and lowering is a completely gravity-based method no external energy is needed for this operation however did you notice a small issue here when the first ship entered the canal the ocean and chamber water were at the same level however after it was fully raised up an extra water step was formed in the first chamber this extra water must be released into the ocean so that the next ship can enter the chamber this water step originally came from the lake therefore with the passage of each ship the gatun lake loses water without correcting this issue

the gatun lake would eventually dry up completely and operation of the Panama Canal would cease luckily this is not the case the gantoon lake is supplied by the chagras river whose water comes from local rainfall in the Panama province as long as there is sufficient rain the water loss that occurs during each ship Crossing is easily compensated for however the Panama Canal drought of the Year 2019 scared everyone the water level in Panama became too low due to the drought some shippers were forced to limit the amount of cargo in order to safely navigate the

Waterway the next year there was sufficient rainfall and the canal was functioning optimally once again now let's tackle the big question how do we flood this exact region of Panama for this we must first construct a dam the water stream from the chagras river will accumulate within the dam region the newly formed water body is called gatun Lake one of the largest man-made Lakes simply by controlling the dam height or the height of the water surface we can achieve different levels of flooding unfortunately there is no way to flood only this region if you try

to flood the entire Crossing almost the entire country of Panama will be underwater because of this American Engineers decided to stop the flooding at this level almost two-thirds of the land is flooded and only a small portion remains above water now Begins the real challenge removal of this 15 kilometer long unflooded region or the formation of Culebra cut the whole purpose connect the dam and ocean water have a look at these gigantic machines known as a track shifter dirt spreader and unloader interestingly they were all invented for one specific purpose form the calabra cut by

removing the Earth and connect the oceans the king of the Panama Canal construction Machinery was the steam shovel created by Bucyrus to accomplish this Mega project 70 such steam shovels were employed even such a gigantic machine struggled in Panama's Rocky terrain the right solution is usage of dynamite a staggering eight hundred thousand sticks of dynamite were used on average per month during the major excavation work the dynamite effortlessly broke large rocks into smaller pieces which could then be easily scooped up by steam shovels one scoop could move two tons of dirt the way the dirt

was dumped into the train was so cool to watch take a look at the power source of this gigantic machine a steam engine the way this steam engine controls this machine is a classic example of the incredible Innovations of the early 20th century Engineers turned the boom using a mount with a rope around it the Dipper stick was able to move to and fro thanks to this interesting gear arrangement the Dipper stick could also rotate because of this chain pulley arrangement when the bucket was ready to dump the material the crane operator simply pulled the

latch the wagons now filled with dirt could start their Journey towards the dump area as it turns out even just emptying the dirt from these 20 plus wagons was a big challenge with the help of an experiment let's see how Americans solve this issue this simple piece solved the big issue of unloading let's see it in action I am moving the unloader piece you can see all the stones are falling down in this direction this is somewhat cool this animation shows the details of the automated soil dumping machine when this steam-powered winch rotates it pulls

the unloader towards it as a result the soil gets dumped from the open edge of the wagon let's watch the unloading operation from another angle these big mountains of dirt on the sides of the rail track will not allow any further dumping when the next material filled wagon arrives to flatten these mountains the Americans invented yet another machine the dirt spreader the dirt spreader has steel wings that can extend by 11 to 13 feet from the rails on either side the operation of this machine is so satisfying to watch you can see how effortlessly the

machine pushes away the dirt and flattens the mountains once the embankment became wide enough the clever Engineers shifted the track to the new flat surface to shift the track the engineers invented and deployed another genius machine called a track shifter the track shifter has a small but useful crane powered by a locomotive the workers are connecting the track with the track shifter the first step in the operation is to lift the track from the ground this is achieved with the help of a chain yoke and upper boom Arrangement you might now be wondering how the

steel rails are able to bend like this this was possible due to the use of a special kind of flexible steel rail now the lower boom turns towards one side and the track gets shifted this way a large section of track could be shifted without having to disassemble and rebuild the track if the track shifter had not been invented it would have taken around 500 workers to toil using the old method shifting ties and rails separately by using this newly invented machine it's estimated that the American government saved several million dollars now it's time to

see using these machines how the engineers formed the Culebra cut the Culebra cut was a big engineering lesson for civil engineers worldwide suppose the excavation took place in a non-mountainous region this is what the french thought sufficient enough to dig however nearly three times more soil needed to be removed even the Americans couldn't imagine the need to remove such a massive amount of soil the reason for this is landslides all the materials have an angle of repose the angle of repose needed for the Culebra region was quite low to achieve a stable cut after years

of Earth removal the collaber cut was almost ready the last challenge remaining was this heightened portion called Gamboa Dyke as you might expect by now the Americans tackled this issue in style on October 10 1913 the American President Woodrow Wilson pressed a button which sent a signal to 7 000 kilograms of dynamite located 6 000 kilometers away at Gamboa Dyke in Panama the engineers had prepared an extensive electrical cable network mostly under the ocean to transfer the president's signal to Panama after pressing the button the signal took four seconds to reach its destination there it

caused a spark and a giant explosion leaving a gap of 60 feet at Gamboa Dyke the water in the gatun lake immediately rushed to the calabra cut at last the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans met for the first time Not only was this a moment of great pride for the Americans but the whole world joined in the celebration of this historical moment using the fundamentals and Technologies we've learned so far let's review all the details of a ship's Transit across the Panama Canal when a cargo ship nears the lock chamber of the canal the ship propeller

must be turned off the ship will now be moved by these two tugboats no ship is allowed to pass through the lock chamber under its own power watch how the ship is perfectly aligned with the canal gate thanks to the sideways push of these boats just before the ship enters the lock chamber the Canal workers tether it to four electric locomotives called mules they travel on either side of a lock wall on a high voltage rail track these locomotives carefully guide the ship so it doesn't hit the lock walls the ship is now undergoing a

few water step climb operations the Panama Canal locks are so well designed that today's enormous ships can safely travel through it with only inches to spare after climbing the final water step the ship reaches the famous Culebra cut you know what comes after the caliber cut the gatun lake while cruising across the lake passengers can enjoy Panama's Scenic Beauty foreign once the ship reaches the end of the cut it's lowered using the reverse water step method here's one last fun fact these Gates you see are called miter locks and they were originally designed by the

great Leonardo da Vinci around 500 years ago the genius design of the miter locks form a watertight joint automatically mitral locks are huge but you might be aware that Lasix is in a huge trouble to sustain our education service please support us on patreon I would truly appreciate that thank you for watching the video take care bye bye