Reynolds BEng. Portfolio update, 7 October 2026.
Status: protocol ready. Bench not yet run. Phase 1 of Research Methodology has been withheld until laboratory access existed. With the IceCube facility now available as a public instrument, this paper specifies the test so that it can be examined without that access.
Parent statement. Viktor Lewe’s 1915 thin-shell analysis is the unstated working parent of the coefficient tables in Portland Cement Association, Circular Concrete Tanks without Prestressing (1942; 1993 edition, Domel and Gogate). Carpenter cited Lewe in 1927. Later editions left that parent off the working page. Project 1 restores the chain. Project 2 writes the hoop as
σθ=tpr+σR
Project 4 gives the residual a modulus with duration, ZR=A∗t∗L∗τ2, so that σR=F/ZR
Project 6 asks whether σR is visible on a free surface when the wall thickness used in the classical term is no longer the load path.
Abstract. A super-thin steel cylinder, held circular by external elastic confinement after removal of an internal former, is proposed as a macroscopic membrane in which wall thickness may be eliminated from the calculation if the confinement, not the plate, carries the hoop. The observable is a ripple on a water surface in a vessel isolated from external vibration. The ripple is to be compared with the Bessel zeros already used to control σR in Appendix 2. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is introduced only as a published analogue: a hexagonal prism of ice, treated in analysis as a cylinder, instrumented by glass modules that register deposited energy. The claim is not that IceCube has measured σR. The claim is that both arrangements ask the same geometric question at two scales. The bench reports a moment. The array reports an energy. Absence of a free-surface ripple falsifies the bench claim.
1. The proposed model
The design intent is a compressive cylindrical membrane whose confinement exceeds the strength required of the shell material, so that the material thickness can be removed from the working equation. This is a legal move only if the experiment allows it. Membrane theory already drops bending stiffness when (t/r) is small. Project 6 goes further. After the former is withdrawn, circular form is to be maintained by external high-tension elastic bandage alone. If the shell then carries hoop by confinement rather than by plate thickness, the classical (pr/t) term has no (t) left to divide by, and the residual
σR
is the hoop. The fill is water, 1m3. Closure of the plan is the rational value (22/7), not a fitted π.
The quantity to be read is not an energy in GeV. It is a moment, length held with duration, m.s: radial path on the wall, times the period of the surface mark. A continuous-second bin is recorded only as the laboratory contrast. The prediction is a standing ripple on the free surface, with nodes at the Bessel zeros of Appendix B, present when the vessel is isolated from external vibration, and absent from a (pr/t)-only sheet of the same geometry.
Falsification is single. No ripple under isolation, no Project 6. A ripple that tracks a known laboratory frequency is also a fail, unless that frequency has been subtracted and a residual at the ring remains.
2. IceCube, contrast and compare
IceCube is not part of the apparatus. It is the published case of the same drawing at particle scale. Eighty-six strings on a triangular grid, 125 m apart, read as hexagons in plan. Sixty modules per string, 17 m apart vertically, from 1,450 m to 2,450 m depth: a 1,000 m prism of about 1 km³, often replaced in effective-area calculations by a cylinder. Each module is a glass sphere about 30 cm across under ice load of order 20 MPa. Photon arrivals are timed to 1–2 ns.
| Details | Project 5 bench | IceCube analogue |
|---|---|---|
| Construct | circular membrane, plan closed on (22/7) | hexagonal prism, analysed as a cylinder |
| Thickness | steel 0.1–0.3 mm, then removed from the equation if confinement holds | fiducial surface inside the ice; no liner |
| Fill | water, 1m³ | glacial ice, ~1 km³ |
| Gauge | free surface; strain and radial displacement | glass optical module |
| Observable | moment, m.s, ripple period | deposited energy, GeV, photon time in ns |
| Reading | rational wall, Appendix 2 zeros | fragment: track, direction, flavour |
| Pass | residual ripple after isolation | not claimed |
| Fail | no ripple | not a fail of Project 6 |
The array demonstrates that a cylindrical boundary in a clear medium can be instrumented, and that a glass shell under pressure can register a signal from the fill. That is energy, read from the fragmentary seat: arrival direction, reconstructed vertex, neutrino as source. Project 6 does not relocate that source. It uses the array to show the geometric twin, and then measures the other member of the pair. Their reduction builds the fragment in, and reads energy. The bench is built from the wall, and reads moment. Same observation in the limited sense of hoop, fill, and gauge. Not the same result.
3. Methodology
Phase 1 is proof of concept. A super-thin steel cylinder, wall about 0.1–0.3 mm, is held circular on a rigid internal former. High-strength elastic bands are applied under controlled tension in a 3-6-9 pattern. The former is then removed. Cylindrical geometry is thereafter the work of external confinement. Instrumentation is strain gauges, radial displacement sensors, and high-speed video of the free surface. Fill is 1m³ of water. The vessel is isolated from laboratory vibration. Controlled internal pressure and low-amplitude excitation are used only after the isolated record, so that a driven ripple cannot be mistaken for the residual.
Phase 2, if Phase 1 passes, repeats the protocol on scaled concrete specimens. Concrete is not the first material, because the geometric question is otherwise mixed with cracking and creep.
The moment reduction is specified in advance. For each surface mark, form r⋅τ from wall radius and ripple period. Compare the nodal radii with Appendix B. Do not accept a continuous-second spectrum as the result.
4. Expected outputs
A documented protocol, model, and instrumentation plan. Initial Phase 1 data, or a recorded fail. A statement, pass or fail, on whether thickness may be eliminated. If pass, a note on material reduction, previously estimated at 18–20 per cent with stability maintained; that figure is not assumed. A risk note limited to this: residual hoop is invisible in a coefficient table that has no σR term. Design recommendations only if the ripple is real.
