News Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge - Historical Construction/Impressions

SuddenStorm

SuddenStorm

Well-Known Member
Are these AT-AT's going inside the ride building? If so, hopefully they can do some kind of forced perspective to make them look full sized.
 
FerretAfros

FerretAfros

Well-Known Member
phruby said:
Too bad there isn't a structural engineer on this board.
Click to expand...
In my professional life, I'm more on the civil/transit side, but my education background is almost entirely structural engineering, taught within the framework of California's seismic requirements. I'm even sitting about 6' from a real live structural engineer at this very moment!

That said, I agree with everything @flynnibus has said: the legs should be steel to deal with the tall unbraced load (essentially creating a moment frame out of the 4 legs/columns), but there's really no clear reason that the body/head structures should be so solidly built. It would be fine to construct it out of wood or smaller steel members, and this would help reduce the loads that need to be supported so high up in the air.

From the joints and connections we've seen in construction photos and videos, these look like they will be entirely stationary (which is in line with Disney's policy of removing overhead moving set pieces, following DLP's Big Thunder incident), meaning they could essentially be made from paper mache and would be just fine. If there's no live load being applied to them from movement, and minimal dead loads from the structure itself, the structure can be surprisingly lightweight. it's a small world used this very approach for a fast & cheap build before the World's Fair, but those set pieces and props are doing fine 50+ years later.

The only potential logic I can think of is that WDI has been under fire recently for having too much overhead cost. By over-designing elements of projects with massive budgets like this, it helps them hide their high costs as being relatively smaller in comparison to the construction cost, even if that construction is unnecessary. When vertical construction began, I commented that the cross-bracing was massive for a warehouse-type building, which would seem to follow the general idea of this whole thing being incredibly over-designed (for whatever reason). Obviously I'm not running any calculations, nor have I even seen the structure in person, but from my position there seems to be something going on that we don't know about

EDIT: I know that "value engineering" gets a (mistakenly) bad reputation around these parts as being an excuse to cut show elements, but that's typically something that comes in the budgeting phase of a project. In fact, this is a perfect example of where value engineering could and should be applied, reducing the construction costs and structural loads, while still providing the exact same end product to guests, which in turn frees up more money to be spent elsewhere. It really makes me wonder what's going on with this project...
 
Last edited:
Phroobar

Phroobar

Well-Known Member
Well, at least during an earthquake (or nuclear blast), the safest place at Disneyland would be star wars land. Just stay away from the Matterhorn or the People Mover tracks.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
FerretAfros said:
In my professional life, I'm more on the civil/transit side, but my education background is almost entirely structural engineering, taught within the framework of California's seismic requirements. I'm even sitting about 6' from a real live structural engineer at this very moment!

That said, I agree with everything @flynnibus has said: the legs should be steel to deal with the tall unbraced load (essentially creating a moment frame out of the 4 legs/columns), but there's really no clear reason that the body/head structures should be so solidly built. It would be fine to construct it out of wood or smaller steel members, and this would help reduce the loads that need to be supported so high up in the air.
Click to expand...

I agree.. which is why the build stood out so much to me in the photos.

While I'm not a P.E., there was good reason all us engineers took the same core curriculum for two years plus other electives in other engineering disciplines.. plus our own speciality :) My engineering electives were in thermodynamics and nuclear engineering rather than material science.. but statics and dynamics still apply :)

Now a days.. cheats like 'computer engineering' have really cut back on those core engineering credits students used to take across the board. Chemistry, more physics, etc.
 
Phroobar

Phroobar

Well-Known Member
flynnibus said:
I agree.. which is why the build stood out so much to me in the photos.

While I'm not a P.E., there was good reason all us engineers took the same core curriculum for two years plus other electives in other engineering disciplines.. plus our own speciality :) My engineering electives were in thermodynamics and nuclear engineering rather than material science.. but statics and dynamics still apply :)

Now a days.. cheats like 'computer engineering' have really cut back on those core engineering credits students used to take across the board. Chemistry, more physics, etc.
Click to expand...
Wow! This computer science geek has a huge new respect for you. Those must have been some incredible classes to take.
 
Earl Sweatpants

Earl Sweatpants

Well-Known Member
Here's just a few new snaps courtesy of MC's SWL Update.

Covering the channel that linked the basement to the circle pit.
SWL-Mar-17-W-7-610x407.jpg


More channeling(?) coming out from the Circle Pit.
SWL-Mar-17-W-9-610x407.jpg
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
phruby said:
Wow! This computer science geek has a huge new respect for you. Those must have been some incredible classes to take.
Click to expand...

The irony is.. Nuclear Engineering was one of the easiest classes. You write out this huge (fills the board all the way across the room) equation.. then because of orders of magnitude, you basically drop all but like 2 components. It was hysterical when the professor first started doing. Like 10mins of writing.. and he goes 'and this is like 10 to the 10th, so this so one will never matter... nor this one.. this one goes to zero.. ' etc etc and then you are left with this crazy simple equation that is like basic differentials.. not even advanced calc. Our school did have a research nuclear reactor tho.. that's pretty cool. Thermodynamics can be summed up as "a series of equations that feed into each other that takes 30mins to get to the one variable you need" :greedy: Literally, exams would be 2 or 3 problems.. that took you the whole period to solve. Easy math... but easy to screw up because there are so many steps.

Electromagnetic Theory is the most brutal for EEs IMO. Anyone who does true design for transmitted power over EM, true antenna design, etc.. those are the people that I can't process :)

Then I took a career that doesn't require me to do any of the real heavy math anymore.. just know enough to say 'you might want to double check that' :D
 
D

Deleted member 107043

Curious Constance said:
I'm proud of you, Hans.
Click to expand...

This may be the first time I'm able to understand what I'm looking at besides the trees being added to ROA!

The Mur said:
Ah, you may be right.
The compression from long lens gives a distorted sense of how things relate in spacing.
Click to expand...

Which is probably why I'm going to end up being wrong. Watch it end up being some kind of fancy churro cart or something. :hilarious:
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom