nitpick though: that was a naval mine
Yes, Tangent definitely wins this one. Got it right way back near the start of the thread, and posted no other threads with incorrect guesses or other misled nonsense.
Clearly some sort of a prize is in order.
Yep. This was someone’s learning to cast aluminum project.
The interior rules out the rotational molding idea, and the whole thing is too badly and unevenly assembled to actually be used for holding any liquid or gas. The uneven cast on the interior shot is probably the result of the artist(s) improving their technique for casting over the process, or refining their molds to more easily release the aluminum or something. How the piece looked when finished wasn’t even important, by the time it was done one or more people had a lot of experience metal casting.
If that thing is aluminum… isn’t is worth a lot of money to just be sitting out as trash?
It’s probably assembled with steel nuts & bolts, which would only take about eight billion hours to unfasten. Eff that.
Should I clear some space on my shelf for a 300 lb spherical aluminum trophy?
Regarding the top pieces not fitting together, they may have at one point, but weather, age, rough handling or vandalism is the reason they don’t anymore. You can see at least one hole punched into one of the ‘pipes’ and one of the panels is snapped from one of the bolts.
Got meth?
I’m guessing it was displayed outdoors until it became damaged or was just in the way of some new construction or landscaping. As a unique work of art ( and likely a gift) the university couldn’t very well turn it in for scrap so it just ended up in outdoor “storage”.
Then again… maybe this IS where it’s supposed to be. Have you noticed any artsy types standing around? Berets, clove cigarettes, things like that?
I was thinking something tasteful instead, but, sure. Why not?
Bolts & nuts don’t look rusted. Are they stainless steel, perchance? If so, they should be salvaged…
The top doesn’t fit right because there’s damage. It probably dropped, See how there are two broken grid pieces at 7 o’clock in pic 4?
I still think it looks far too complex for a school project but I’m otherwise stumped and may have to concede defeat.
That’s a dated view of archaeology.
Nowadays our default assumption is that it’s some sort of brewing apparatus.
mmm, I wonder if anyone’s come up with a booze-related explanation for the bronze dodecahedra?
It doesn’t look like the pointed segments composing the top circle were ever fixed together (or indeed fit together very well) - the flanged effect of all the other segments has been extended up to the top segments, but there’s no way to bolt the flanges together - they are all just cantilevered off a single bolt attachment at the bottom, and pushed together for fit.
Which means it can’t have been a properly-designed container for anything much - ping pong balls maybe, but not fluids.
xx
(didn’t notice that the thread had multiple pages.)
I’ve been puzzling over this for a while. A few thoughts. One, I really doubt it is a work of art. For me the big clue is the triple set of curved pipes. I have seen similar setups for fluid manifolds.
I suspect it is made of some form of reinforced plastic. The broken bit in one picture has the fractured look of a brittle plastic. The out of focus bit of plant makes it a bit hard to exactly make out the edges, but the break does not look like most metals.
There are water tanks that are make in a similar fashion - that is bolted together flanged plastic plates, although the size of the plates is vastly larger.
I like the idea that the rationale for the tiny little plates was to allow flexibility in the location of new ports in the sphere, although the idea that the designer was either not too smart about what they were doing, or was working with some curious production limitations is possible.
The three external manifolds seems to be a critical clue. In the limited views we have it appears that the top pipe feeds two ports on the equator of the sphere. All three curved pipes are connected together at the near end, and I think this is an important clue. I can’t see anywhere where the middle curved pipe connects to the sphere. The lowest of the three might, or might not feed the sphere somewhere. There is a curious feature in the two entries from the top pipe into the sphere - the connections extend both into the sphere, and also project away from the sphere, terminating in a hemisphere. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to fabricate these dome ends, and also to insert a small length of pipe between them and the main pipe. One role I can think of for these is that they may be intended to damp any shock wave that comes back out of the sphere. A bit like a water hammer damper. The flat blanking plate at the end of the top pipe clearly suggests that this part of the pipe isn’t subject to odd forces - although it may represent a point where more pipes were once attached.
I do suspect that the device was intended to test and measure fluid flow in a sphere - and my guess is that it was filled with water. We can’t see under it - but it is going to be strong enough to be filled with water, and a suitable stand, would work to hold it. It isn’t that much bigger than a large pool filter.
WAG, it could have been filled with salt water, and used to play with the behaviour of conductive fluids in a sphere - although the usual questions about that involve spinning the fluid to emulate the Earth’s internals. But use of plastic could be mandated by a need to measure electrical and magnetic properties. But more likely because it was cheap.
I might show the pics to a couple of mech eng mates, and see what they make of it.
My take is that the top is a single piece, and the flanges are cast into it. If it is made of individual units, my guess is that the thing is constructed of some form of plastic, so they could be bonded together, and thus still one final piece. I think the bolted construction of the rest is as much about flexibility in configuration as construction requirements.
Did you see the pictures in Post 288? That thing can NOT hold fluid and NitroPress says it’s aluminum alloy.
Darn. No, I missed those.
OK, so aluminium, and not water tight.
What is really interesting is the curious damage to the inside of the sphere. I still think the configuration of the manifolds is a big clue.
Ah well, back to think some more…