Healing
Wound healing is a pretty amazing thing. I’m a biologist, so I know how it works1, but I still find it fascinating. Four weeks ago, I had a relatively large (but very neat) cut through my body wall, something that ought to be fairly catastrophic — there’s a reason we have all those layers of skin, after all. But now I just have a red scar, and the skin has knitted itself together nicely. That part of the procedure was more or less the handiwork of my body’s own processes, without much modern medical intervention. All that is needed is some way of temporarily keeping the edges of the wound together (modern surgical clips, stitches, thorns, soldier ant mandibles, or whatever), and your body does the rest.
I was thinking about this yesterday while watching a couple of plumbers trying to fix my leaking radiator pipe. Why can’t we design domestic pipework to heal itself of leaks, like a scab forming over a wound? We could provide the equivalent of a temporary plaster over the hole to slow the flow, then the pipe could gradually seal itself. In this case, the plumbers who originally installed the pipes couldn’t even get basic plumbing right, let alone advanced self-healing. The guys yesterday had to open up the wall a bit to find a sound bit of pipe to form the new joint with, and discovered that a) the plastic piping that’s supposed to protect the copper pipes from corrosion caused by the plaster stopped half way down the wall, and b) they hadn’t actually bothered to solder the upper joint — it was just slotted together, which goes some way to explaining why it was leaking.
1 …she writes, desperately trying to recall the details of that lecture many years ago in which the process was explained. It would be more accurate to say that I know roughly how it works. ↑
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"…she writes, desperately trying to recall the details of that lecture many years ago"
Don't worry, you have almost certainly forgotten much more than I and most of your readers will probably ever know about this.
And I promise not to tell your students!
And if you could firm up a few of the technical details of how this self healing plumbing system might work, you shouldn't have to worry that much about your pension, or mortgage repayments!
I am glad you are recovering well. All the best from Brighton
by ThoughtBadger @ 11/11/2006 10:35 pm • Permalink •
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ThoughtBadger: I was vaguely thinking about some kind of additive to the water that would react to an influx of oxygen by forming a solid plug, like a product called 'Slime' which instantly repairs punctures in bike tyres. The difficulty -- with the human body, as with radiator pipes -- is to fine tune the reaction so that the whole thing doesn't seize up completely at any hint of a 'wound'. I suspect it will remain a dream until one day I see that someone else has made millions from the idea and I curse myself for being so apathetic
by bsag @ 13/11/2006 7:03 pm • Permalink •
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As a plumber I can inform you that the leaksealer you would like invented already exists and has done for many a year. http://www.fernox.com/?cccpage=leaksealerls_i&sub=5
Several other companies make them, Sentinel, Dunsley... However, in the case you describe, none would have worked very well, as they all rely on the evaporation of the leaking water.
Also none of them cope with much of a leak. Seep, yes, leak, not really. As a geek, I'm sure you'd love a company called 'Leakfinders'. They inject a little gas into the system, 95&#xni;trogen, 5&#xhy;drogen, and then pinpoint the leak with a sensitive gas-sniffer. Expensive, I suspect.
A few years ago, we had a newly surfaced carpark at work, and a leak somewhere. Somewhere between the water meter and any of several buildings. What do you do? start at the water meter and dig trenches along the pipe until you find a fountain? We didn't know about leakfinders then, and didn't want to dig up tens of thousands of pounds worth of new tarmac. So the company chairman says he knows a water diviner. The water diviner turns up, takes a couple of nicely made bronze rods out of a mahogany box and strolls around, every now and then, the rods cross, he stoops to chalk a mark. I have the old plans, showing the mill from 1865 onwards. he is not shown them. Yet faithfully he gradually draws on the ground the pipes I can see on the plan.
At one point he stops, confused. "Theres water here, but deep down, flowing. Not a pipe, broader. not a leak. Like a...." Stream? Bagley Beck, culverted, sixteen feet below our feet. This man lives sixty miles away in another county, no prior knowledge of the site.
Then he stops. Chalks. Here, he says. Flowing narrow, then a wide area of water, narrow again. "Dig here." We did. Three feet down, an old iron threaded joint, corroded through.
I wasn't a believer before that. Now? Of course.
by ersatz @ 17/11/2006 7:43 pm • Permalink •
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ersatz: Gah! Too late
. That's an interesting story about the diviner. I don't think I'd believe it unless - like you - I saw it for myself.
by bsag @ 18/11/2006 6:59 pm • Permalink •
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Yes the leaksealer already exists it is no new invention...oh an did you know that Super Glue was invented for medicine to stop bleeding ?
by plumbing contractors @ 16/12/2007 5:37 pm • Permalink •
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