Use of Simple Scientific Principles in Rural Areas for Common Utility

Parimal Bhattacharya

Abstract

Archimedes principle describes the laws of a floating body, be it a country boat or an ocean going ship. Based on such principle and common laws of forces defined by Newton’s laws for motion, the stability equations of a floating body has been developed. Some of the Indian villages, mostly in northern India, are inundated with many rivers and canals which are mostly used for economic activities like fishing, irrigation and to some extent water transportation of men and material etc. Wherever land routes are available water transport is hardly used because of inconvenience. Thus the natural force of water which is called buoyancy is hardly used for common benefit. Buoyancy force of water can also be conceived as an upward lift force and may be utilised to replace cranes in some special cases like installation of bridge girders on pillars located inside the river. But sometimes in low water depth, villagers occasionally use rafts made of banana trunks but these are low weight bearing body and not long lasting. However common oil drums which are available in plenty and mostly sold as scrap after the content is used can be used to construct a similar floating raft. This is a simple low cost raft but very useful for many jobs in small water body. This article describes use of such simple floating body for transportation and installation of 50 tonne bridge girder over a small river in north Bengal at Dalkhola. In this article, a methodology that will be adopted for girder transportation and final lifting by crane is described.

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