RSID: <<2022-08-11T23:31Z MFSK-32 @ 9265000+1500>>

Welcome to program 267 of Shortwave Radiogram.

I'm Kim Andrew Elliott in Arlington, Virginia USA.

Here is the lineup for today's program, in MFSK modes as noted:

  1:35 MFSK32: Program preview (now)
  2:41 MFSK32: World's tallest timber building*
  8:51 MFSK64: Cement for building on the Moon and Mars
14:55 MFSK64: This week's images*
28:33 MFSK32: Closing announcements

* with image(s)

 

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And visit http://swradiogram.net

We're on Twitter now: @SWRadiogram

From New Atlas:

New world's tallest timber tower crowned in the USA

Adam Williams
August 09, 2022

Move over Mjøstårnet, the Ascent, by Korb + Associates
Architects, has officially been recognized as the new world's
tallest timber tower by the CTBUH (Council on Tall Buildings and
Urban Habitat). Located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the residential
high-rise reaches an impressive maximum height of 86.6 m (284
ft).

The 25-story Ascent was created in collaboration with structural
engineer Thornton Tomasetti and hosts retail and amenity spaces
on the lower floors, with 259 apartments above, some of which are
up for rent. Like other timber towers we've seen, the apartments
feature an interior decor that leaves the wood uncovered in
places, leaning into the material's natural beauty, while also
boasting generous glazing framing views of Milwaukee.

The building is situated on top of five levels of concrete
parking garages and concrete-filled steel pipe piles, and also
has two concrete cores hosting the elevator shaft and stairwell.
The tower structure proper is primarily constructed from a system
of glued laminated timber (glulam) beams and columns supporting
cross-laminated timber (CLT) floors. The exterior, meanwhile, is
mostly glass.

"The building took the world's tallest title in two of the mass
timber categories," explained the CTBUH." Mjøstårnet in
Brumunddal, Norway, certified by CTBUH in 2019, was the previous
world's tallest timber building at 85.4 meters [280 ft]. Ascent
is now both the tallest timber building overall, as well as the
tallest concrete-timber hybrid building. The previous tallest
concrete-timber hybrid building was the 84-meter [275-ft] HoHo
building completed in 2020 in Vienna, Austria."

Though its designation as world's tallest hybrid timber tower
makes obvious sense, given its use of concrete and wood, we were
curious how the building could be considered the tallest "timber"
building and contacted the CTBUH for clarification. A
representative explained that when deciding if a timber tower is
sufficiently made from timber, it looks at whether the main
vertical and lateral structural elements are constructed from
wood. In this case, the Ascent building meets the criteria and
we'll happily bow to the CTBUH's wisdom.

The project took two years to construct and, according to the
CTBUH, its use of wood decreased construction time by
approximately 25% compared to a conventionally constructed
concrete building of the same size. Additionally, while fire is
always going to be a concern for some people when it comes to any
kind of wooden building, tests have shown that the timber
structural elements meet or even exceed the local fire rating
code requirements – this is a point that was also echoed with
Mjøstårnet and other modern timber towers we've covered.

https://newatlas.com/architecture/ascent-tallest-timber-tower/
 

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Shortwave Radiogram now changes to MFSK64 ...

 

RSID: <<2022-08-11T23:38Z MFSK-64 @ 9265000+1500>>


This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK64

Please send your reception report to radiogram@verizon.net

 

From Phys.org

Building on the Moon and Mars? You'll need extraterrestrial
cement for that

by University of Delaware
August 10, 2022

Sustained space exploration will require infrastructure that
doesn't currently exist: buildings, housing, rocket landing pads.

So, where do you turn for construction materials when they are
too big to fit in your carry-on and there's no Home Depot in
outer space?

"If we're going to live and work on another planet like Mars or
the Moon, we need to make concrete. But we can't take bags of
concrete with us-we need to use local resources," said Norman
Wagner, Unidel Robert L. Pigford Chair of Chemical and
Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware.

Researchers are exploring ways to use clay-like topsoil materials
from the Moon or Mars as the basis for extraterrestrial cement.
To succeed will require a binder to glue the extraterrestrial
starting materials together through chemistry. One requirement
for this out-of-this-world construction material is that it must
be durable enough for the vertical launch pads needed to protect
man-made rockets from swirling rocks, dust and other debris
during liftoff or landing. Most conventional construction
materials, such as ordinary cement, are not suitable under space
conditions.

UD's Wagner and colleagues are working on this problem and
successfully converted simulated lunar and Martian soils into
geopolymer cement, which is considered a good substitute for
conventional cement. The research team also created a framework
to compare different types of geopolymer cements and their
characteristics and reported the results in Advances in Space
Research. The work was highlighted recently in Advances in
Engineering.

Geopolymer cement

Geopolymers are inorganic polymers formed from aluminosilicate
minerals found in common clays everywhere from Newark, Delaware's
White Clay Creek to Africa. When mixed with a solvent that has a
high pH, such as sodium silicate, the clay can be dissolved,
freeing the aluminum and silicon inside to react with other
materials and form new structures-like cement.

Soils on the Moon and Mars contain common clays, too.

This made Maria Katzarova, a former associate scientist and
member of Wagner's lab at UD, wonder if it was possible to
activate simulated Moon and Martian soils to become concrete-like
building materials using geopolymer chemistry. She proposed the
idea to NASA and obtained funding via the Delaware Space Grant
Consortium to try with the help and expertise of then-UD doctoral
student Jennifer Mills, who studied terrestrial geopolymers for
her doctoral dissertation. The researchers systematically
prepared geopolymer binders from a variety of known simulated
soils in the same exact way and compared the materials'
performance, which hadn't been done before.

"This is not a trivial thing. You can't just say give me any old
clay, and I'll make it work. There are metrics to it, chemistry
that you have to worry about," Wagner said.

The researchers mixed various simulated soils with sodium
silicate then cast the geopolymer mixture into ice-cube-like
molds and waited for the reaction to occur. After seven days,
they measured each cube's size and weight, then crushed it to
understand how the material behaves under load. Specifically,
they wanted to know if slight differences in chemistry between
simulated soils affected the material's strength.

"When a rocket takes off there's a lot of weight pushing down on
the landing pad and the concrete needs to hold, so the material's
compressive strength becomes an important metric," Wagner said.
"At least on Earth, we were able to make materials in little
cubes that had the compressive strength necessary to do the job."

The researchers also calculated how much terrestrial material
astronauts would need to take with them to build a landing pad on
the surface of the Moon or Mars. Turns out, the estimated amount
is well within the payload range of a rocket, anywhere from
hundreds to thousands of kilograms.

Simulating space conditions

The research team also subjected the samples to different
environments present in space, including vacuum and low and high
temperatures. What they found was informative.

Under vacuum, some of the material samples did form cement, while
others were only partially successful. However, overall, the
geopolymer cement's compressive strength decreased under vacuum,
compared to geopolymer cubes cured at room temperature and
pressure. This raises new considerations depending on the
material's purpose.

"There's going to be a tradeoff between whether we need to cast
these materials in a pressurized environment to ensure the
reaction forms the strongest material or whether can we get away
with forming them under vacuum, the normal environment on the
Moon or Mars, and achieve something that's good enough," said
Mills, who earned her doctoral degree in chemical engineering at
UD in May 2022 and now works at Dow Chemical Company.

Meanwhile, under low temperatures of about -80 degrees Celsius,
the geopolymer materials didn't react at all.

"This tells us that we might need to use some sort of accelerant
to achieve the strength we see at room temperature," Mills said.
"Maybe the geopolymer needs to be heated, or maybe we need to add
something else to the mix to kickstart the reaction for certain
applications or environments."

At high temperatures, about 600 degrees Celsius, the researchers
found that every Moon-like sample got stronger. This was not
surprising, Mills said, given how the kinetics were hindered at
low temperatures. The research team also saw changes in the
physical nature of the geopolymer cement under heat.

"The geopolymer bricks became much more brittle when we heated
them up, shattering as opposed to becoming compressed or breaking
in two," Mills said. "That could be important if the material is
going to be subjected to any type of external pressure."

Based on their results, the researchers said that chemical
composition and particle size may play an important role in
material strength. For example, smaller particles increase the
available surface area, making them easier to react and
potentially leading to greater overall material strength. Another
possible factor: the amount of aluminosilicate content in the
starting materials, which can be tricky to estimate when added
solutions may also contain small concentrations of these
materials and contribute to material performance.

What does it all mean?

Well, Amazon doesn't offer two-day delivery to space, so
designing the right formulation of starting materials to take
matters. Understanding what affects material strength is
important, too, since astronauts will be sourcing our topsoil
materials from different places on planets-and maybe even
different planets altogether.

These results also can be used to make geopolymer cements on
Earth that are better for the environment and can be sourced from
a wider variety of local materials. Geopolymer cements require
less water than is needed to make traditional cement, too,
because the water itself is not consumed in the reaction.
Instead, the water can be recovered and reused, a plus in
water-limited environments from arid earthly landscapes to outer
space.

Today, two of Wagner's current graduate students are exploring
ways to use geopolymer cements to 3D-print houses and to activate
geopolymer materials using microwave technology. The work is a
collaborative project with researchers at Northeastern and
Georgetown universities. Similar to the microwaves you use to
reheat your morning coffee, microwave heating can accelerate
geopolymer curing and may one day provide a way for terrestrial
builders-or astronauts-to cure geopolymer concrete in a targeted
way.

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-moon-mars-youll-extraterrestrial-cement.html

This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK64

Please send your reception report to radiogram@verizon.net
 

This week's images ...


"Lunar Spectrum" by Joel Stafford is a winner of the 2022 David
Malin astrophotography awards. https://bit.ly/3dnraQR ...

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A pod of Beluga whales swims near Norway's Svalbard Islands, July
23. https://bit.ly/3BYt6JS ...

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Watching the sunset from a hill in Ealing, west London.
https://bit.ly/3vY5Do6 ...

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Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, Australia, illuminated in
pink in memory of Olivia Newton John. https://bit.ly/3dgNvzj ...
 

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A stork on a lamp post as the Moon rises near Xanthi, Greece.
https://reut.rs/3dnyuvP ...

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A dragonfly at the Tregaron Conservancy in NW Washington DC.
https://bit.ly/3Qz4X0q ...

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Moonrise Over Monahans Sandhills State Park, Texas.
https://bit.ly/3QCyZQV ...

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Our art of the week is this illustration by Harry Haysom
accompanying a Financial Times article about the desertification
of Spain. https://bit.ly/3QoIDqQ ...

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Shortwave Radiogram returns to MFSK32 ...

 

RSID: <<2022-08-11T23:58Z MFSK-32 @ 9265000+1500>>



This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK32 ...

 

Shortwave Radiogram is transmitted by:

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and

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Please send reception reports to radiogram@verizon.net

And visit http://swradiogram.net

Twitter: @SWRadiogram or twitter.com/swradiogram

I'm Kim Elliott. Please join us for the next Shortwave
Radiogram.

RSID: <<2022-08-11T02:50Z MFSK-64 @ 5850000+1500>>


This Is A Music Show #178
11 August 2022

0200-0300UTC Thursday on 5850 kHz

via WRMI, Okeechobee USA

***ALSO***

TIAnExpressMS w/ Radio Northern Europe International
via Channel 292 in Germany, mainly on 6070 kHz.

Broadcast various dates/times/freqs. Check the schedule here:

https://www.channel292.de/
https://rnei.org/

----------------------------------------

PLAYLIST

Big Jim "H" - Blues For Keyboard

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Ombiigizi - Cherry Coke
Karate - Cherry Coke
Supertramp - It's A Long Road

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Skyy - Call Me (EDIT)
Book Of Love - I Touch Roses (Full Bloom Mix)(EDIT)
Corina - Out Of Control

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Jane Siberry - One More Colour

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Mahavishnu Orchestra - One The Way Home To Earth

-----

THIS DATA w/ Bert Kaempfert - Our Street Of Love

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Morning - Sleepy Eyes

----------------------------------------

TIAMS Website:

https://thisisamusicshow.com

Go here for show archives + official shop!

-----

Please send reception reports/comments:

thisisamusicshow@gmail.com

Follow TIAMS on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/ThisIsAMusicSho/

------

Thanks for listening!

--YOUR HOST--


EOM


RSID: <<2022-08-11T02:51Z MFSK-64 @ 5850000+1500>>

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