The employees of Saudi Aramco Oil company were charged with installing a steel pipe 5km across a flat desert from the fields to the refinery. The temperature in the desert reached a scorching 105 degrees F during the day, so it was decided to install the pipe at night when the temperature was a cool 45 degrees F. The 5km of steel was laid on top of the flat desert sand all in one night and both ends securely fastened at their respective terminations, but nowhere else. The next day the employees found that the steel had expanded in the 105 degree F heat and bulged straight upward in the center of the 5km line forming a circular arc.
Steel expands .00000656 inches per inch per degree F.
Disregard pipe diameter for this problem and treat as a line.
How many meters above the ground was the center of the pipe?
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Prof. Templeton
A variation of an earlier one...
The employees of Saudi Aramco Oil company were charged with installing a steel pipe 5km across a flat desert from the fields to the refinery. The temperature in the desert reached a scorching 105 degrees F during the day, so it was decided to install the pipe at night when the temperature was a cool 45 degrees F. The 5km of steel was laid on top of the flat desert sand all in one night and both ends securely fastened at their respective terminations, but nowhere else. The next day the employees found that the steel had expanded in the 105 degree F heat and bulged straight upward in the center of the 5km line forming a circular arc.
Steel expands .00000656 inches per inch per degree F.
Disregard pipe diameter for this problem and treat as a line.
How many meters above the ground was the center of the pipe?
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