The underwater video of the fracture surface seems to show the steel being bent outwards as if there had been a massive localised internal overpressure. It also seems to show a thick red protective coating on the inside of the pipe, so perhaps seawater will not be such a problem as some think.
There are "pigs", barrel-like things that are run through pipelines. Some clean the insides, some measure wall thickness, some take pictures. Maybe some explode.
When I worked on pipeline pigs, we got statistics (sic!) that said that the average rupture of an 48" pipeline in Canada or Alaska would create a 50 meter crater, which normally would only affect some elks. The usual pressure is HUGE. Puncturing the tube is enough.
None of them can move one meter on their own. They are pumped with the oil through the pipeline, or in case of gas as an assembly of several: plug pig, 100m of water, measurement pig,
100m of water, another plug.
Pumping that through the pipeline requires that the destination side is open and anything they put into the tube must come out on the other side. Flow speed must be reduced from the normal case. NS2 had never any throughput, just pressure.
Not much point in reinstating it. I doubt Europe is foolish enough to starting relying on Russian gas again until and unless Russia not only gets rid of Putin, but also reinstates a proper democracy with a constitution strong enough to prevent another dictator getting into power. That's probably a long way off.
It is not blown outward. It is pulled apart axially, yielding clean fractures perpendicular to the pipe wall.
What could do this? Well, a sidewise explosion in the center of the missing 50-meter gap would cause a very large axial force pulling on the pipe on both sides of the explosion center, causing such a fracture.
It's like pulling sideways on a taut rope between two anchor points. One can often pull the anchor point out due to the very large mechanical leverage of that geometry.
We won't be able to tell until we find the mangled pipe from the gap.
Only a tenable hypothesis to someone who misunderstands the concept of 'common sense'. For instance, almost everyone has common sense (otherwise, it wouldn't be common); it's not remarkable, it's always 'average'.
The Donald, though, had quarrels within his own staff (and fired many); disagreement with the FBI director had a dozen or so top people ready to resign en masse, for instance.
John Larkin liked them. More expert commentators thought that they were moronic.
John Larkin doesn't actually appreciate the nature of the skills required to be a better than average president. The average plumber hasn't got them. This would mean that he'd be easier to corrupt than the average politician, amongst other fairly obvious weaknesses.
Don't forget the about 150 atmospheres of overpressure inside the pipe. The explosives would only have to structurally weaken the pipe and let the gas do the rest.
Yes, that has to help. But given the usual safety factors on such things, I'd hazard that the explosion of a few hundred kilograms of TNT or the like dominated. Think a million psi.
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