On a Palm Tree realated message board, there’s a discussion about a palm tree impaling a 2x4 in a hurricane. Hurricane andrew came up and most of us understood that yes, a 2x4 Can impact a tree with such force as to impale it. However a couple of “Skeptics” say that it couldn’t happen, despite about three people who have seen it in person, and me presenting two separate pics of the same tree, and one of a tree in Puerto Rico who had the same done to it.
They claim that no way could a hurricane send a 2x4 horizontally through the air at about 40 feet or so and impale a Royal Palm (Roystonea sp).
What i’m looking for is if anyone can describe to me the physics behind it. Why doesn’t the board shatter? Pictures obviously won’t convince them.
Help me out with these “Skeptics” (Who i said were just being hard headed… a “real” skeptic would present evidence to the contrary and they have not).
I have only anecdotal evidence to help you out here.
I was in South Florida during Hurricane Andrew. Yes, a 2 x 4 can impale a Royal palm and anything else in its way. Hurricane winds (anywhere from 75 mph to 200 mph) can pretty much pick up anything that isn’t securely fastened down and turn them into missles. That’s why residents of So. FL were instructed to toss their lawn furniture into their pools and bring inside anything that wasn’t pretty much anchored by concrete into the ground. That included the kids’ toys, our trash, trash cans, anything.
Any skeptic who says this can’t happen… has never been through a Category 4 hurricane. I suspect these skeptics you refer to could possibly be morons, or at least are incredibly ignorant about hurricanes and the kinds of damage high winds can cause.
I think the boards probably don’t shatter because they may be pressure treated and therefore, probably harder than the trunk of the palm. An analogy might be if you stuck a nail through a banana.
Tell said sceptic to grab a raw potato and a regular straw. Hold the straw and quickly insert it into the potato, it won’t bend or anything…It’ll go right into it. Do it with a sharp jerk, like throwing a dart.
Only the physic’s behind it escape me…only if I could remember what Mr. Robidioux said in senior physics back in high school 1985.
A photo of a 2x4 through a palm tree. Note that one end is splintered, and this probably made it easier for the lumber to penetrate the trunk. I’m not convinced a flat, intact end could do this.
Here’s a good site, from a study done at the University of Colorado (where that famous professor makes his hurricane predictions every year.) I’d call this a credible source. Specifically, look at the links entitled, “wind-borne debris” and “hurricane hazards.”
I actually posted that very same picture and pointed out that one end was splintered, and that the trunk was cracked, and the morons still didn’t believe it.
THis is mind boggling, i just can’t wrap my mind around how they can’t believe this!
If it is travelling fast enough, almost anything can pack serious penetrating power - not really comparable to a hurricane, but I have seen a wax candle loaded in a shotgun and fired through a thick plywood door - it isn’t just a case of how hard or rigid something is because if it is travelling fast enough, it will have very little opportunity to deform as it transfers some energy to the sattionary object.
It also helps if the projectile object has strong rigidity in the lengthwise direction. I was watching (IIRC) @Discovery Canada recently, and saw a regular pencil fired through at least 1" of plywood. Can’t find it online though; feel free to believe it never happened.
Yeah… I was thinking those doubters may be a bit confused about the physical characteristics of a 2x4 and about exactly how things are inside the hurricane. Been there, and let’s just say I’d rather be elsewhere. Blame a world full of cheap compressed chipboard “wood”. A 2x4 is not a “board”, it’s a substantial stick of solid wood. As Nanoda mentions, it’s cut lengthwise to the direction of the grain, making it very rigid.
(and conversely, it’s not like a royal palm, awesome tree as it is, has the physical attributes of an 18"-thick column of pressure-treated lumber)
Nanoda we do this on a slightly smaller scale where I work. Here’s a device that will shoot a pencil through a piece of 3/8" inch plywood using a CO[SUB]2[/SUB] fire extinguisher. It works eraser-end first too, but it makes a BIG hole in the plywood!
