Operation
The wheel rotates together with the axle, which is supported by four-metre-diameter slewing bearings that are fitted to the ends of the axle and have their outer rings mounted on the plinths, which in turn are constructed on top of piled foundations.
The slewing bearing at the machine-room end of the axle has an inner ring gear which is configured to act as a rotating annulus. The rotating annulus is driven by ten hydraulic motors which are assembled on a stationary bearing and motor assembly known as the planet carrier which in turn is also mounted onto a plinth similar to the one at the other end of the axle. The drive-shafts of the motors have pinion gears which act as stationary planetary gears in this train of gears and engage the rotating annulus ring gear. An electric motor drives a hydraulic pump which is connected to the hydraulic motors by means of hoses and drive the wheel at 1/8 revolution per minute.
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“It is critical vision alone which can mitigate the unimpeded operation of the automatic.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
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“You may read any quantity of books, and you may almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don’t have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)