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Ice Caisson
Refrigeration coil makes frozen walls to hold back water | |
Form the coil into a mesh of the general shape you'd like the
structure to be. Add refrigerant and wait, then pump out water.
Using several electric compressors (and long cords) you could make
modular coil sections to create some really big and interestingly
shaped underwater ice buildings. Add
fibres for greater strength.
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Annotation:
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This would work as long as the surrounding water is
close to freezing. Otherwise, I think you'd need a
huge amount of coolth to outweigh the warming
effect of the water. |
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You would be sunk if your freezer compressors ever wore out. |
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You might enjoy reading about the ice battleships of World
War II. Some navies seriously tried freezing seawater mixed
with sawdust, to make giant iceberg aircraft carriers. It
worked well but was too weird to actually deploy. |
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I imagine the cooling pipes being furry. Or perhaps with knitted covers. The fibres would strengthen the ice/pykrete, but more importantly they'd hamper local currents that would sap so much power during the initial cooling. |
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In polar regions, you could use passive heat pipes with radiators fins above the water level. |
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