1,000 Boats To Push Flood Waters From Chao Phraya River

[MaxYakov]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

Not sure if it's a colossal attempt at face-saving, but there where reports going around yesterday that this unique approach to remedy the flood problem came from somewhere quite high up top. Dunno if these claims will ever be clarified or rejected though....

I heard it was the Water Goddess.

[Brunus]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

This attempt is based on the studies of Jacques Benveniste . This French scientist won twice the Ig Nobel Prize. In particular this is based on the study that allowed him to win his first Ig Nobel in 1991 " for his persistent discovery that water, H2O, is an intelligent liquid, and for demonstrating to his satisfaction that water is able to remember events long after all trace of those events has vanished."

Basically water molecules will remember that a thousand boats are trying to push them away, will get angry, go to the ocean to never return back to the Chao Phraya River.

The Thai genius who had the idea should read also another study by the same Jacques Benveniste that allowed him to win his second Ig Nobel in 1998 " for his homeopathic discovery that not only does water have memory, but that the information can be transmitted over telephone lines and the Internet.[REFERENCE:"Transatlantic Transfer of Digitized Antigen Signal by Telephone Link," J. Benveniste, P. Jurgens, W. Hsueh and J. Aissa, "Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology - Program and abstracts of papers to be presented during scientific sessions AAAAI/AAI.CIS Joint Meeting February 21-26, 1997"].

I am wondering why nobody had the idea to give a call or send an email to the Chao Phraya River water, politely asking if it can just flow faster into the ocean.

The studies of Jacques Benveniste are immunological studies but can applied to the Chao Phraya River water as well.

The smart Thai dude who had this brilliant idea is a serious candidate for the Ig Nobel Prize 2012

P.S. I am not kidding. Just google " Ig Nobel Prize"

Anyone can submit an Ig Nobel Nomination.

Edited October 17, 2011 by Brunus

[Crushdepth]

I would encourage believers in the push water out to sea theory to go and take a look at the river. Its huge, more than half a kilometer across. Then go take a look at some of the boats 'pushing'. They aren't running at full throttle.

This is a PR exercise. Wake up.

[JetsetBkk]

wouldn't 75, 000 boats possibly raise the water level just by their total weight on the water?

Definitely. And they would all need to be anchored or held stationery while trying to go upstream, i.e. while tugging at their anchor. It's no good just sitting there, not anchored, and holding station.

[JetsetBkk]

I would encourage believers in the push water out to sea theory to go and take a look at the river. Its huge, more than half a kilometer across. Then go take a look at some of the boats 'pushing'. They aren't running at full throttle.

This is a PR exercise. Wake up.

Wide awake, thanks. The theory works irrespective of the size of the river.

Unfortunately, the Chao Phraya is so big that the effect will be very small.

[Buchholz]

But Plodprasob was quick to add that the operation would need 75,000 more boats to increase its efficiency.

This clown doesn't know when to stop...

[Buchholz]

How many cub scout merit badges is this equivalent to?

I think that picture is just a Photoshop job and cannot be relied upon, as his mole above his lip cannot be seen in it, and therefore takes away credibility (whatever there was) from his entire Curriculum Vitae.

Indeed, it does.

btw, I got the information on his degree from the Akha Heritage Foundation:

We note that Plodprasop was a graduate of Oregon State University Forestry Department

The foundation is less than impressed with the man going back to 2003 when he was the boss of Thailand's Forestry:

Thai Forestry Chief Plodprasop Out of Touch

http://www.akha.org/content/forestry/plodprasopoutoftouch.html

It would seem based on his latest debacle that not much has changed about him since then.

.

[ResX]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

Not sure if it's a colossal attempt at face-saving, but there where reports going around yesterday that this unique approach to remedy the flood problem came from somewhere quite high up top. Dunno if these claims will ever be clarified or rejected though....

I heard it was the Water Goddess.

Ok. Let's apply Bernoulli continuity equation at two points for controlled volume & steady state flow. Google Bernoulli continuity equation. Try to under stand it. The answer that you want lies somewhere there. I'm trying to prove to concept. Not the method to achieve it.

[BuckarooBanzai]

How many cub scout merit badges is this equivalent to?

I think that picture is just a Photoshop job and cannot be relied upon, as his mole above his lip cannot be seen in it, and therefore takes away credibility (whatever there was) from his entire Curriculum Vitae.

Indeed, it does.

btw, I got the information on his degree from the Akha Heritage Foundation:

We note that Plodprasop was a graduate of Oregon State University Forestry Department

The foundation is less than impressed with the man going back to 2003 when he was the boss of Thailand's Forestry:

Thai Forestry Chief Plodprasop Out of Touch

http://www.akha.org/content/forestry/plodprasopoutoftouch.html

It would seem based on his latest debacle that not much has changed about him since then.

.

http://www.wildlife1.org/news/220-ex-forestry-chief-plodprasop-is-found-guilty-of-approving-deal

Ex-forestry chief Plodprasop is found guilty of approving deal

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2006/08/07/plodprasop-and-the-spirits/

Plodprasop and the spirits

August 7th, 2006 by Andrew Walker

A grey wolf that had escaped from Chiang Mai Night Safari has been recaptured. Night Safari boss, Plodprasop Suraswadi (ex-supremo of the Royal Forest Department) led a team into the foothills of Doi Suthep to claim their prize. The Bangkok Post quotes Plodprasop in his moment of triumph: ”After we paid homage and prayed to forest spirits, the wolf eventually walked out before us.” Local villagers can now sleep soundly at night. Apparently before the capture scared residents had ”locked themselves in at night with domestic pets and fighting cocks sleeping by their side.” Charming! But what lies ahead is uncertain. The wolf will be held in quarantine ”after a veterinarian confirmed it had had a sexual encounter with a local dog.”

Edited October 17, 2011 by BuckarooBanzai

[longway]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

I read that they have 500 boats along the chao praya attempting this feat.

I worked it out on the basis of adding kinetic energy to the river.

The average flow of the Chao praya is I believe 350 million cube. They expect 50 million cube extra from 500 boats. ( Got this from news story cant remember where now)

So they want to add about more kinetic energy to the river to speed up the flow by 15%.

KE= 0.5 x mass x v^2 (from internet)

If you assume a average speed of 1 m/s = about 2 knots

The you want to increase the speed to 1.15 m/s. (assuming that the increase in the depth of the chao praya of 15% does not overflow the sides at all)

This is not counting other factors such as the speed of the incoming tide and efficiency of tranfer of energy to parts of the river that are not being 'speeded' up, and the boats themselves slowing the flow a bit.

On this basis original KE of the chao praya at 1m/s is 175,000,000 KJ increase this by the amount required to speed the flow by 15% and you get 56,437,500 KJ

then I think boat propellors are 50% efficient. (not sure about this)

which is 42000 HP (from an internet calculator) = 84HP per boat 24 ours a day. I guess its not that crazy as it first looks, unless I got my units wrong, but probably just on the edge of feasibility of they can organise it right and get decent boats.

They would get some significant fraction of 50 million cube, but its very likely a very inefficient use of resources, but if you are in desperate straits then...

BTW I have not studied physics and only have some superficial knowledge of boats.

Edited October 17, 2011 by longway

[GentlemanJim]

Guy's

why don't you divert your energy elsewhere. Proving the concept is absolutely pointless. The simple fact is (for the hard of hearing and the simple minded), it is a bloody big river, with a bloody big water flow and a massive amount of water in it. Sticking 1000 boats in it is as useful as sticking your tadger up an elephant that has had 20 calfs. It is not going to achieve ANYTHING. The only thing this has achieved is to convince the illiterates (and from Thai Visa, some not so illiterates) that this was a meaningful exercise. It was futile, the Government achieved nothing in terms of flood alleviation and those boats should have been delivering sand bags up and down the length of the river to key structural points.

Stop arguing. It didn't work, it will never work and arguing the toss as to whether you can get an extra teacup full of water out of the estuary before its time will not help the people who are still up to their necks in sh*t and water. Even the science minister says, he actually needs 75000 boats to make it feasible . 75 000 boats!! At the moment they may as well give every Bangkok resident a pack of kitchen roll and tell them to all go to the river at the same time and 'mop it up'!

[Crushdepth]

I would encourage believers in the push water out to sea theory to go and take a look at the river. Its huge, more than half a kilometer across. Then go take a look at some of the boats 'pushing'. They aren't running at full throttle.

This is a PR exercise. Wake up.

Wide awake, thanks. The theory works irrespective of the size of the river.

Unfortunately, the Chao Phraya is so big that the effect will be very small.

And in terms of flood mitigation, useless.

[Buchholz]

That is our tax-money that is paying for his joyride.

Water Drainage by Boats to Continue until Month's End

Officials expect that the strategy of using boats' propellers to accelerate the drainage of water out to the sea will be required through the end of October due to runoffs from the North and rain, which will continue to cause water levels to rise.

-- Tan Network 2011-10-17

[MaxYakov]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

Not sure if it's a colossal attempt at face-saving, but there where reports going around yesterday that this unique approach to remedy the flood problem came from somewhere quite high up top. Dunno if these claims will ever be clarified or rejected though....

I heard it was the Water Goddess.

Ok. Let's apply Bernoulli continuity equation at two points for controlled volume & steady state flow. Google Bernoulli continuity equation. Try to under stand it. The answer that you want lies somewhere there. I'm trying to prove to concept. Not the method to achieve it.

Maybe we'd better apply Bernoulli's equations, because I'm sensing a continuity problem. I was just floating here minding my own business with the Water Goddess ...

[Crushdepth]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

Not sure if it's a colossal attempt at face-saving, but there where reports going around yesterday that this unique approach to remedy the flood problem came from somewhere quite high up top. Dunno if these claims will ever be clarified or rejected though....

I heard it was the Water Goddess.

Ok. Let's apply Bernoulli continuity equation at two points for controlled volume & steady state flow. Google Bernoulli continuity equation. Try to under stand it. The answer that you want lies somewhere there. I'm trying to prove to concept. Not the method to achieve it.

We know the concept. What we are saying is that the *practical difference* it will make in terms of *flood control* is zero. What is the point in arguing the difference between nothing and a trivial increase that is too small to deliver any real benefit? This is a case of internet pedantry.

[FOODLOVER]

"A real solution is more intuitive and begins with Newton's third law from simple high school physics: every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. Propulsion of conventional power boats, as well as fish, swimming organisms and humans, is based on this principle, as are rocket and jet propulsion. When a force is exerted by an object to deliver momentum to a medium, it can propel that object in the opposite direction through the medium, and vice-versa. For example, even one power boat propelled upstream delivers downstream momentum to the water, acting as a mini-pump. This could be done in a pulsating manner using a cycle of alternating upstream propulsion with downstream relaxation and drift with the ambient current, in a simple scenario. A whole array of such power boats could then act in phase as a larger booster pump, adding downstream momentum to the water all across the river. Care would need to be taken to limit the added momentum at each stage to avoid overflowing the riverbank ("Don''t make waves!"). Depending on economics and other considerations, the boats could be anchored to the riverbanks and riverbed. Then the boats would not actually move upstream, but would transfer their momentum to a massive stationary rigid object, and could still "pump" the water downstream. Perhaps at the riverbanks, a row of boats could be aligned at angles to deflect flow away from the banks and toward midstream. At least technically, I believe this concept would work, regardless of the politics. Quantitative results are a different matter, and might be too small relatively to make the project worthwhile".

Continued from my last post......

[GentlemanJim]

"A real solution is more intuitive and begins with Newton's third law from simple high school physics: every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. Propulsion of conventional power boats, as well as fish, swimming organisms and humans, is based on this principle, as are rocket and jet propulsion. When a force is exerted by an object to deliver momentum to a medium, it can propel that object in the opposite direction through the medium, and vice-versa. For example, even one power boat propelled upstream delivers downstream momentum to the water, acting as a mini-pump. This could be done in a pulsating manner using a cycle of alternating upstream propulsion with downstream relaxation and drift with the ambient current, in a simple scenario. A whole array of such power boats could then act in phase as a larger booster pump, adding downstream momentum to the water all across the river. Care would need to be taken to limit the added momentum at each stage to avoid overflowing the riverbank ("Don''t make waves!"). Depending on economics and other considerations, the boats could be anchored to the riverbanks and riverbed. Then the boats would not actually move upstream, but would transfer their momentum to a massive stationary rigid object, and could still "pump" the water downstream. Perhaps at the riverbanks, a row of boats could be aligned at angles to deflect flow away from the banks and toward midstream. At least technically, I believe this concept would work, regardless of the politics. Quantitative results are a different matter, and might be too small relatively to make the project worthwhile".

Continued from my last post......

Your last sentence is the most important. Save your fingers and your keyboard. It won't work!

Edited October 17, 2011 by metisdead
Do not modify someone else's post in your quoted reply, either with font or color changes.

[MaxYakov]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

I read that they have 500 boats along the chao praya attempting this feat.

I worked it out on the basis of adding kinetic energy to the river.

The average flow of the Chao praya is I believe 350 million cube. They expect 50 million cube extra from 500 boats. ( Got this from news story cant remember where now)

So they want to add about more kinetic energy to the river to speed up the flow by 15%.

KE= 0.5 x mass x v^2 (from internet)

If you assume a average speed of 1 m/s = about 2 knots

The you want to increase the speed to 1.15 m/s. (assuming that the increase in the depth of the chao praya of 15% does not overflow the sides at all)

This is not counting other factors such as the speed of the incoming tide and efficiency of tranfer of energy to parts of the river that are not being 'speeded' up, and the boats themselves slowing the flow a bit.

On this basis original KE of the chao praya at 1m/s is 175,000,000 KJ increase this by the amount required to speed the flow by 15% and you get 56,437,500 KJ

then I think boat propellors are 50% efficient. (not sure about this)

which is 42000 HP (from an internet calculator) = 84HP per boat 24 ours a day. I guess its not that crazy as it first looks, unless I got my units wrong, but probably just on the edge of feasibility of they can organise it right and get decent boats.

They would get some significant fraction of 50 million cube, but its very likely a very inefficient use of resources, but if you are in desperate straits then...

BTW I have not studied physics and only have some superficial knowledge of boats.

Excellent post. Finally, another poster (rubi did one earlier) puts forth a mathematical analysis of this. I was waiting for the good Minister to come up with one, but all he does is keep upping the number-of-boats ante. I'd say your approach using the KE formula has merit, there may be some details that need adjustment.

1) I believe there are actually three rivers involved, with the two other rivers with 300 boats each and the Chao Phraya with 500. Yesterday, rubi did some work in determining the per cent of drainage increase (7.5 %) among the three rivers HERE.

2) The 15% increased kinetic energy/speed I haven't seen. I doubt that they know what their goal is, other than to somehow put more m³/time-period into Bangkok Bay than the Phraya naturally would have occurred. The only result I've seen stated is an increased 50M m³ over, I believe, 24 hours. It could be that this is the total of increased flow from the boats on all three rivers.

3) You say the average flow for the Phraya is 350Mm³ /unspecified-time-period. The numbers I've seen are 4-5K m³/sec. If we go with 4.5 x 10³ m³/sec we get ( 4.5 x 10³ X 1.84 x 10⁴ ) = 8.28 x 10⁷ m³/day. This is about 1/4 of your 350Mm³/unspecified-time-period. We have to remember that 'average flow' has to be factored for the actual flow for this time of year. Better yet, for the actual flow we're seeing.

4) Based on the above, you might have to recalculate your KE of the Chao Phraya.

5) I'd drop the propeller efficiency unless you can get something specific from the internet.

6) I got lost in your arrival at total HP or HP/boat. I didn't see the conversion from river KE required in joules to horsepower.

It's an interesting and straightforward way to go, but its downside is that it's based on a flow increase (50M m³/day) from a dubious source.

I had a different idea on how to approach this using the KE formula, but I got distracted. I can fairly accurately and easily compute the Chao Phraya's KE (there's a problem getting current flow rates for the two other rivers), but I would have to compute the KE output of the boats in joules. Difficult to do when I'd have to guesstimate their KE output. The idea of this approach is to get a ballpark number for the amount of KE being added to the river so that it can be compared to the total Chao Phraya KE (both for the same time period, of course).

This approach, would not rely on the Minister's (or whomever) 50M m³/day? claim. Instead, it would give a feel for the KE that the boats could feasibly add to the river.

Anyway, Thanks for the Effort.

[ResX]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

I read that they have 500 boats along the chao praya attempting this feat.

I worked it out on the basis of adding kinetic energy to the river.

The average flow of the Chao praya is I believe 350 million cube. They expect 50 million cube extra from 500 boats. ( Got this from news story cant remember where now)

So they want to add about more kinetic energy to the river to speed up the flow by 15%.

KE= 0.5 x mass x v^2 (from internet)

If you assume a average speed of 1 m/s = about 2 knots

The you want to increase the speed to 1.15 m/s. (assuming that the increase in the depth of the chao praya of 15% does not overflow the sides at all)

This is not counting other factors such as the speed of the incoming tide and efficiency of tranfer of energy to parts of the river that are not being 'speeded' up, and the boats themselves slowing the flow a bit.

On this basis original KE of the chao praya at 1m/s is 175,000,000 KJ increase this by the amount required to speed the flow by 15% and you get 56,437,500 KJ

then I think boat propellors are 50% efficient. (not sure about this)

which is 42000 HP (from an internet calculator) = 84HP per boat 24 ours a day. I guess its not that crazy as it first looks, unless I got my units wrong, but probably just on the edge of feasibility of they can organise it right and get decent boats.

They would get some significant fraction of 50 million cube, but its very likely a very inefficient use of resources, but if you are in desperate straits then...

BTW I have not studied physics and only have some superficial knowledge of boats.

I support the underlying concept you put forward. 350 million cube that you mentioned shall be read 350million cubic meter per day to make it clear.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

It's pretty hard to believe that the leaders of a nation are conceiving and trying to execute such a plan with straight faces....

Sometimes all you can say is... "Amazing Thailand."

OK, I'm going back now to my praying to the water god ceremony....

[GentlemanJim]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

I read that they have 500 boats along the chao praya attempting this feat.

I worked it out on the basis of adding kinetic energy to the river.

The average flow of the Chao praya is I believe 350 million cube. They expect 50 million cube extra from 500 boats. ( Got this from news story cant remember where now)

So they want to add about more kinetic energy to the river to speed up the flow by 15%.

KE= 0.5 x mass x v^2 (from internet)

If you assume a average speed of 1 m/s = about 2 knots

The you want to increase the speed to 1.15 m/s. (assuming that the increase in the depth of the chao praya of 15% does not overflow the sides at all)

This is not counting other factors such as the speed of the incoming tide and efficiency of tranfer of energy to parts of the river that are not being 'speeded' up, and the boats themselves slowing the flow a bit.

On this basis original KE of the chao praya at 1m/s is 175,000,000 KJ increase this by the amount required to speed the flow by 15% and you get 56,437,500 KJ

then I think boat propellors are 50% efficient. (not sure about this)

which is 42000 HP (from an internet calculator) = 84HP per boat 24 ours a day. I guess its not that crazy as it first looks, unless I got my units wrong, but probably just on the edge of feasibility of they can organise it right and get decent boats.

They would get some significant fraction of 50 million cube, but its very likely a very inefficient use of resources, but if you are in desperate straits then...

BTW I have not studied physics and only have some superficial knowledge of boats.

Excellent post. Finally, another poster (rubi did one earlier) puts forth a mathematical analysis of this. I was waiting for the good Minister to come up with one, but all he does is keep upping the number-of-boats ante. I'd say your approach using the KE formula has merit, there may be some details that need adjustment.

1) I believe there are actually three rivers involved, with the two other rivers with 300 boats each and the Chao Phraya with 500. Yesterday, rubi did some work in determining the per cent of drainage increase (7.5 %) among the three rivers HERE.

2) The 15% increased kinetic energy/speed I haven't seen. I doubt that they know what their goal is, other than to somehow put more m³/time-period into Bangkok Bay than the Phraya naturally would have occurred. The only result I've seen stated is an increased 50M m³ over, I believe, 24 hours. It could be that this is the total of increased flow from the boats on all three rivers.

3) You say the average flow for the Phraya is 350Mm³ /unspecified-time-period. The numbers I've seen are 4-5K m³/sec. If we go with 4.5 x 10³ m³/sec we get ( 4.5 x 10³ X 1.84 x 10⁴ ) = 8.28 x 10⁷ m³/day. This is about 1/4 of your 350Mm³/unspecified-time-period. We have to remember that 'average flow' has to be factored for the actual flow for this time of year. Better yet, for the actual flow we're seeing.

4) Based on the above, you might have to recalculate your KE of the Chao Phraya.

5) I'd drop the propeller efficiency unless you can get something specific from the internet.

6) I got lost in your arrival at total HP or HP/boat. I didn't see the conversion from river KE required in joules to horsepower.

It's an interesting and straightforward way to go, but its downside is that it's based on a flow increase (50M m³/day) from a dubious source.

I had a different idea on how to approach this using the KE formula, but I got distracted. I can fairly accurately and easily compute the Chao Phraya's KE (there's a problem getting current flow rates for the two other rivers), but I would have to compute the KE output of the boats in joules. Difficult to do when I'd have to guesstimate their KE output. The idea of this approach is to get a ballpark number for the amount of KE being added to the river so that it can be compared to the total Chao Phraya KE (both for the same time period, of course).

This approach, would not rely on the Minister's (or whomever) 50M m³/day? claim. Instead, it would give a feel for the KE that the boats could feasibly add to the river.

Anyway, Thanks for the Effort.

Guys, Guys, Guys, stop it. You are making a mockery out of Mathematics and Physics. Your calculations are absolutely meaningless. You cannot make 'assumptions' like you are doing without taking into account some very very important variables and fluid effects. We cannot even get the most basic of maths correct, so what hope have you got of doing anything else? The Mathematical model of this is incredibly complex and you cannot do 'internet' calculations. It would take a skilled applied mathematician days, if not weeks to solve the problem and give you a number.

Maxyakov, with all due respect, Longway's post is not an excellent post, it is absolute garbage. You aren't helping him by not being able to get your maths correct either. If a river is moving at a volume of 4500 M3 per second then how much flows in 24 hours? Well assuming we have it correct that there are 3600 seconds in an hour. the flow will be 4500 X 3600 = 16.2 Million M3 per hour X 24 = 388.8 Million M3 per day!!

Secondly, the river is not some undiscovered perpetual motion machine. Just because you propel a volume of water through a propellor does not mean it will continue to move at that speed until it reaches the sea. If that were the case as per both of your kinetic energy assumptions then the worlds power requirements could be provided by this one river. What happens to a boat traveling upstream at 20 knots when you turn the engine off? It eventually (quite quickly) comes to a stop. What happens to a very small amount of water that you throw into the river at 20 knots? The same thing happens, the water ends up moving on its own and encounters the massive resistance of hundreds of millions of M3 of water, that is NOT moving at 20 knots. End result, they reach equilibrium and the net overall change in speed of the larger volume of water is zero, zilch, nada. Stop embarrassing yourselves by trying to postulate on complex hydrodynamic theories by using a schoolboy interpretation of Newtons laws. Sorry if this sounds hard, but it is true.

[MaxYakov]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

I read that they have 500 boats along the chao praya attempting this feat.

I worked it out on the basis of adding kinetic energy to the river.

The average flow of the Chao praya is I believe 350 million cube. They expect 50 million cube extra from 500 boats. ( Got this from news story cant remember where now)

So they want to add about more kinetic energy to the river to speed up the flow by 15%.

KE= 0.5 x mass x v^2 (from internet)

If you assume a average speed of 1 m/s = about 2 knots

The you want to increase the speed to 1.15 m/s. (assuming that the increase in the depth of the chao praya of 15% does not overflow the sides at all)

This is not counting other factors such as the speed of the incoming tide and efficiency of tranfer of energy to parts of the river that are not being 'speeded' up, and the boats themselves slowing the flow a bit.

On this basis original KE of the chao praya at 1m/s is 175,000,000 KJ increase this by the amount required to speed the flow by 15% and you get 56,437,500 KJ

then I think boat propellors are 50% efficient. (not sure about this)

which is 42000 HP (from an internet calculator) = 84HP per boat 24 ours a day. I guess its not that crazy as it first looks, unless I got my units wrong, but probably just on the edge of feasibility of they can organise it right and get decent boats.

They would get some significant fraction of 50 million cube, but its very likely a very inefficient use of resources, but if you are in desperate straits then...

BTW I have not studied physics and only have some superficial knowledge of boats.

I support the underlying concept you put forward. 350 million cube that you mentioned shall be read 350million cubic meter per day to make it clear.

Resx, It's a post in the right direction, at least. Would you please take a look at this recent POST,

[kennkate]

Please Gentleman Jim Don't spoli the fun this has to be the best laugh I have had for years.

Next they will be telling folks to carry buckets full down to the sea.

I do feel for the folk's affected. I myself was floded in the Uk It's not nice. It took nonths to return to normal

The only thing the boats are doing is putting more Co2 into the atmosphere, And Contibuting to globle warming.

[GentlemanJim]

Please Gentleman Jim Don't spoli the fun this has to be the best laugh I have had for years.

Next they will be telling folks to carry buckets full down to the sea.

I do feel for the folk's affected. I myself was floded in the Uk It's not nice. It took nonths to return to normal

The only thing the boats are doing is putting more Co2 into the atmosphere, And Contibuting to globle warming.

kennkate

you are right, I will back off and let the little Einsteins continue. I guess it's good to practice maths once every 30 years. As you can see from Max's last post anyway, he has completely ignored my comments, so to excuse the pun it seems to be like water off a ducks back anyway.

[melvinmelvin]

anyone who is foolish enough to think that this attempt has had a meaningful impact on the flood, please provide actual evidence in the form of a scientific proof or measurement data.

it's obvious that the PM is out of her depth (BOOM BOOM!) on this matter. She only says that it has had an effect to make her biggest supporters happy, and as is usually the case, they will lap up anything she says; she could say she kindly moved the moon using satellites to aid the tides, and they would believe it.

A more objective person would question the science behind it. Especially one who has studied physics or has any familiarity with the sea and with boats.

I read that they have 500 boats along the chao praya attempting this feat.

I worked it out on the basis of adding kinetic energy to the river.

The average flow of the Chao praya is I believe 350 million cube. They expect 50 million cube extra from 500 boats. ( Got this from news story cant remember where now)

So they want to add about more kinetic energy to the river to speed up the flow by 15%.

KE= 0.5 x mass x v^2 (from internet)

If you assume a average speed of 1 m/s = about 2 knots

The you want to increase the speed to 1.15 m/s. (assuming that the increase in the depth of the chao praya of 15% does not overflow the sides at all)

This is not counting other factors such as the speed of the incoming tide and efficiency of tranfer of energy to parts of the river that are not being 'speeded' up, and the boats themselves slowing the flow a bit.

On this basis original KE of the chao praya at 1m/s is 175,000,000 KJ increase this by the amount required to speed the flow by 15% and you get 56,437,500 KJ

then I think boat propellors are 50% efficient. (not sure about this)

which is 42000 HP (from an internet calculator) = 84HP per boat 24 ours a day. I guess its not that crazy as it first looks, unless I got my units wrong, but probably just on the edge of feasibility of they can organise it right and get decent boats.

They would get some significant fraction of 50 million cube, but its very likely a very inefficient use of resources, but if you are in desperate straits then...

BTW I have not studied physics and only have some superficial knowledge of boats.

I support the underlying concept you put forward. 350 million cube that you mentioned shall be read 350million cubic meter per day to make it clear.

350*10**6 m**3 equals about 4051 m**3/s

1 horsepower equals about 746 W or J/s if you prefer.

If one considers boats with 500 hp delivered on the shaft; that equals about 373 kW.

1000 of these vessels would do the work: 373 MW.

373 MW of work is not peanuts, very far from it.

What effect would this work have on the velocity of the water (4051 m**3/s)? (right now, I have no idea)

I'm not saying that Plodplods' idea is a good one or even workable.

But, 373 MW is a significant amount of work, it has to accomplish something. What?

For days I've been reading a series of very strong opinions here re the stupidity and non workability of Plodplods' idea.

Fair enough. Those offering these opinions maybe right.

But it would be nice if the opinions could be substantiated in terms of numbers rather than interjections.

A naval screw is a fairly powerfull (reasonably efficient) pump, where does the work go?

[thaimite]

Why is everybody making this so complicated?

There is a simple solution

Tell everybody in Bangkok to open all the taps (faucets) in their houses and let the water drain away for a day.

The reservoirs will consequently drop allowing the excess from the rivers to flow in to them thus lowering the river levels

Not sure how much effect this will have, but it will certanly not be less than 1000 boats on the river and EVERYBODY can them claim to have done their bit!

[MaxYakov]

Guys, Guys, Guys, stop it. You are making a mockery out of Mathematics and Physics. Your calculations are absolutely meaningless. You cannot make 'assumptions' like you are doing without taking into account some very very important variables and fluid effects. We cannot even get the most basic of maths correct, so what hope have you got of doing anything else? The Mathematical model of this is incredibly complex and you cannot do 'internet' calculations. It would take a skilled applied mathematician days, if not weeks to solve the problem and give you a number.

Maxyakov, with all due respect, Longway's post is not an excellent post, it is absolute garbage. You aren't helping him by not being able to get your maths correct either. If a river is moving at a volume of 4500 M3 per second then how much flows in 24 hours? Well assuming we have it correct that there are 3600 seconds in an hour. the flow will be 4500 X 3600 = 16.2 Million M3 per hour X 24 = 388.8 Million M3 per day!!

Secondly, the river is not some undiscovered perpetual motion machine. Just because you propel a volume of water through a propellor does not mean it will continue to move at that speed until it reaches the sea. If that were the case as per both of your kinetic energy assumptions then the worlds power requirements could be provided by this one river. What happens to a boat traveling upstream at 20 knots when you turn the engine off? It eventually (quite quickly) comes to a stop. What happens to a very small amount of water that you throw into the river at 20 knots? The same thing happens, the water ends up moving on its own and encounters the massive resistance of hundreds of millions of M3 of water, that is NOT moving at 20 knots. End result, they reach equilibrium and the net overall change in speed of the larger volume of water is zero, zilch, nada. Stop embarrassing yourselves by trying to postulate on complex hydrodynamic theories by using a schoolboy interpretation of Newtons laws. Sorry if this sounds hard, but it is true.

Yes, could be a mockery, but a few of us are at least thinking about it in mathematical terms. I'm just trying to get a ballpark (maybe mid-river?) feel for the problem. Do you suppose anyone at the Ministery of S & C did even a rough guestimate or just went with the flow?

Thanks for catching the error in the sec/day. I was just checking if anyone was reading. Actually I was using the value from memory from yesterday (86,400) and mistakenly remembered it as 18,400. Bits are starting to drop and I didn't double-check it. It does make longway's total flow/day value concur with that imputed from m³/sec, which is a relief I am always open suggestions and error-reporting.

As to your analysis of water momentum, I didn't see anyone even suggest that the water would maintain the prop wash velocity all the way out the the Bay. Where did you get that idea? The remainder of that paragraph simply expounds on this initial, absurd premise and erroneously implies that the KE transferred to the water from the boats somehow, effectively, disappears. Wouldn't this violate the Conservation of Energy ?

Anyway, maybe you should take another look at this as a problem of adding kinetic energy to the river, as myself and others on this thread have. Then ask yourself this question (and give us the answer):

If there is a net 'zero, zilch, nada' affect on the river water velocity by the prop wash then where did that energy go?

Note: I'm not implying there is a large effect, just trying to get a ballpark figure on how much effect, within reason.

Sure, there are complexities and intangibles, but as I said before, I'm just trying to get in the ballpark ( or somewhere near it? ) with some recently dusted-off high-school Physics.

Thanks for the Feedback!

P.S.: It's MaxYakov, not Maxyakov

Edited October 17, 2011 by MaxYakov

[MaxYakov]

< snipped some math for brevity >

For days I've been reading a series of very strong opinions here re the stupidity and non workability of Plodplods' idea.

Fair enough. Those offering these opinions maybe right.

But it would be nice if the opinions could be substantiated in terms of numbers rather than interjections.

A naval screw is a fairly powerfull (reasonably efficient) pump, where does the work go?

I agree. Coincidentally, I just posed your 'where does the work go' question to GentlemanJim in a reply post. He is of the opinion that the work will end up self-canceling or disappearing or something with a 'zero, zilch, nada' effect on the river.

[BuckarooBanzai]

Just a quick note to you number crunchers!

Most kinds of fluid flow are turbulent.

Common examples of turbulent flow are blood flow in arteries, oil transport in pipelines, lava flow, atmosphere and ocean currents, the flow through pumps and turbines, and the flow in boat wakes and around aircraft-wing tips.

In many geophysical flows (rivers, atmospheric boundary layer), the flow turbulence is dominated by the coherent structure activities and associated turbulent events. (A turbulent event is a series of turbulent fluctuations that contain more energy than the average flow turbulence ie eddies/whirlpools.)

Turbulent flows are always highly irregular. This is why turbulence problems are always treated statistically rather than deterministically.

Dig out your statistics books crunchers!

[longway]

Just to make it clear, I believe the discharge of the chao phraya is 350 million cube per day.

The Conversion from KJ to horse power was just from some page I found on the internet to make it meaningful in terms of engine capacity for me.

Here is the internet calculator I used.

KJ to horse power calculator

Unfortunately I cant find the page where I got the 350 million figure from, but it was some kind of google map, to be exact it said 355 million cube per day.

The 2 knots was from the original news story where they said they would increase the chao prhaya flow from 2 to 6 knots.

Longway's post is not an excellent post, it is absolute garbage.

Dont beat around the bush give to me straight doc.

If I got anything wrong I wont apologise though!

Just thought it was an little intellectual challenge to find some kind of concept on which to base a calculation.

At first I just laughed at the idea of the boats, but thought it was a lazy and prejudiced stance to just poo poo blindly witout giving it a bit of thought.

Edited October 17, 2011 by longway