Thread by @Benedikt_3D

Good Morning, #Starship fans!
OLIT Foundation Thread is here!

In the following posts I will give you a detailed description of how the foundation for the third Orbital Launch and Integration Tower was built and how the finished product looks like.
🧵1/13

Let’s start with the piles, just like the workers did. A continuous flight augering drill, or short CFA drill, starts drilling a 105‘ (32m) deep hole. As the drill retracts its auger drill, concrete is pumped into the hole. (pile count: 133)
🧵2/13

The next step needs to be executed quickly. Rebar cages are lowered into the concrete filled holes. If the rebar cages are placed too slowly, the concrete would become too viscous and I guess you can imagine the rest.
🧵3/13

Once the concrete piles are fully cured, a thin blinding layer is poured to enable better access and easier working conditions. Additional concrete cubes are being added to the blinding to support the rebar rods and prevent them from bending too much.
🧵4/13

A dense grid of about 100x100 rebar rods is layed out. Its weight is supported by the piles‘ surface and the small cubes. The pile cap rebar is tied to the pile rebar. Spacings are placed on top of this rebar layer in order to support the upper coat’s weight.
🧵5/13

Smaller horizontal rods are placed around the perimeter of the pile cap rebar to hold everything into place. Additional vertical rods are tied in to prevent the upper layer from moving.
🧵6/13

Next up: Embeds to which the tower base elements will be bolted and welded are tied into the pile cap rebar.
🧵7/13

After every rod and every embed has been placed and everything is well tied together, concrete pouring can begin. First trucks rolled in on June 9th (21:49 CDT). The last one arrived the following day at 12:44 CDT, making it 181 trucks in total.
🧵8/13

On the 12th of June, at 06:51:30 CDT, concrete formwork was lifted away from the pile cap. This indicates that curing of the concrete has progressed enough to be able to work on the finished pile cap.
🧵9/13

A small side note at the end of this thread: I am not a 100% sure but I think I used the wrong dimensions on the pile spacing, but I decided not to re-do the spacing because this would have meant that I had to re-do the entire pile cap and I wouldn’t have met my deadline.
🧵10/13

Second note: My OLIT 3 model might be a bit off too (too wide), but this model has taken waaaaay too long to model and I will not re-do it. I am already modelling the new OLIT base, which I am going to adapt to my OLIT althought it might be a bit too big then.
🧵11/13

X seems to have problems with GIF uploads. I originally wanted to upload some GIFs that describe various stages of construction. Sorry!
🧵12/13

🧵13/13
I am planning to model the new OLM too, but that could get a little tricky since uni starts in a few months. I really hope hardware begins to show up soon.
Shout outs to @BJSchnettler and agent ah for helping me with this topic.
Benedikt, over and out!

thanks to Vix, aka "the Countess" ❤️

https://x.com/VickiCocks15/status/1801214444854218755