I visited the Royal Armouries Museum today - where there is a massive collection of cannons and other guns - including sections of the infamous Iraqi Supergun, but also, the Great Turkish Bombard - which consists of two truly massive sections of cast bronze, joined by a monstrous screw thread.
This made me wonder… what/where is the biggest functional screw thread ever made? For the purposes of this question, lets say it has to be something designed to screw to fit two objects together, or to fit one object in place into a substrate such as a purposely-cut threaded hole in rock or something. (so spiral drills are out - they’re designed to cut, but not cut a neat threaded hole).
What and/or where is the largest screw thread ever made by humans?
My guess would be the huge nuts and bolts at the base of the CN Tower, which hold it onto the foundation. IIRC, they’re a few meters in diameter, but I’m having a hard time finding discussion of them online.
I seem to recall seeing huge nuts that were used to put tension on a suspension bridge. I was thinking it was the Royal Gorge bridge, but I can’t seem to find anything on it.
I don’t think there was very much, if any, taxpayers money involved. It was financed and built by a huge consortium of UK and French banks and construction companies.
This is a complete hijack, but I just had a very cool epiphany after seeing THIS pic. I thought that the picture looked alot like a room on one level of the game Metal Gear Solid II. Then I realized, that the level in question was on the Tanker - which is exactly what these engines are designed to drive. Then I realized that the engine pictured was likely made in Japan just like the game.
Then, I realized that the engine looking like a level in the game wasn’t a coincidence at all :smack:
Numerous sources say the 72 Space Needle bolts are 30 feet long. Can’t find the diameter or thread pitch, or any info at all on the CN Tower bolts. Anybody else have better luck?
I purchased a pressure vessel with a screw-on retainer nut for the lid. The threads were 24" in dia over the crests and, IIRC, about 2/3 of a thread per inch. One nut holds 5 million pounds of force.
The posters/banners on the wall are in Korean script. Would they have that on a Japanese tanker?
ETA: I’m not asking this belligerently or anything…I just don’t know if a Korean tanker would have a Japanese engine or a Japanese tanker have Korean script banners.
Sure they would - the Japanese and the Koreans are both trade partners, so it’s possible that one company built the engine and then shipped it (on what??) to the shipbuilder in the other country. Or even brought their guys in to build the engine onsite for a Korean shipbuilder.
I saw the original of that site some years ago. The company building the engine is Japanese, but the yard actually doing the building is Korean. Labor costs, I imagine.
Getting back to the OP, it is my understanding that a ship’s propeller is held onto the shaft by a really big nut. I’m thinking the nuts holding the screws on a ULCC would fit the bill.
