Utility Distribution

* See also Utility_Stuff
* See also Rapture_Air
* See also Sewers in Rapture and Sanitation
* See also Trams
* See also TechnicalDrawings (Diagrams)
* See also Vermin
* See also Construction
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Distributed Of : Power, Heat, Communications, Air, Water, Garbage disposal, Maintenance transport
Building utilities : rubbish and postal chutes, fire hydrants, air vents, sewer gratings/drains
See my level map of Hephaestus to see examples of Utility systems being extended out across Rapture.
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Raptures Utility Grid :
Construction
Electric/heat/water/air radiated out to the City via the 'City Mains' in a redundant network of armored/self-contained utility conduits. Some are combined into the 'street' structures, and others as stand-alone 'Utility Aqueducts'.
* Walkspaces around the conduits allow easy inspection. The conduits have their own independent system of Airlocks and sections, and are generally sealed up pretty good.
* The Heat Conduits ( geothermal heated water from Hephaestus ) are easier to insulate in air ( for less loss of heat along their considerable lengths ), thought they are usually quite large and also give off substantial heat ( water that starts at 400 degrees F ).
* The Power conduits can be maintained more easily and avoid water seepage and damage ( and catastrophic shorts ).
* The Conduit structure's concrete bulk protects all the various lines/pipes from external damaging factors ( like submarines running into them ).
* Transitions in and out of buildings can be minimized - simplifying emergency bulkhead mechanisms. Building wall penetration points are usually weak spots and thus maintenance liabilities.
* Integral Hubs and Junctions to distribute power locally ( including intersecting redundant 'mains' )
Electric/heat/water come from Hephaestus and the other geothermal sites
Air comes from the Green Belt ( including Arcadia ) and as backups from the Lighthouse and other nearby surface installations
Some of the competing utility companies (ie - Hudson Power) have varying degree of similar conduit structures.
Distant locations ( ie- industrial sites outside Rapture City ) are traversed by more minimal power/air cables.
Various MMORPG missions would deal with repairs and rebuilding of the infrastructure critical to habitation of Rapture ( Players get to see the effects of what happens when these systems failed ).
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Construction Details :
Much of the electrical systems in Rapture seems to be in sealed conduits and junction boxes/panels ( even the TVs apparently ). This all would be logical with the potential for short circuits from leaks/seepage and the likely humidity conditions. These are Technologies similar to those used on ships for well over half a century (at Rapture's time) thus being available.
Compartmentalization (watertight sections) would also be done to minimize the spread of the effects of major leaks and other calamities. Maintenance Airlocks allow access for repairs to flooded areas. A general drainage/pumping system is spread throughtout the structures.
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1930s Power Plant Controls. ( There seriously wasn't enough of this on view in Rapture Central Control -- or Hephaestus )
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Big Concrete Pipes :
The Boiling point of water at typical Rapture depth pressures is near twice (400 F) as at Sea Level pressure (212 F). This means that the liquid water can be alot hotter (and hold more heat) for delivery to keep the City warm.
Hot salt water erodes metals and large volumes of Very Hot water is shipped all over Rapture from the Hephaestus geothermal sources.    
http://www.game-archivist.com/rapture/img/museum/skyboxes/fullsize/Skybox_05_Engineering.jpg
Source of the hot water for all those Hot Water heating Registers seen throughout Rapture ( keeping it nice and warm in the middle of a near frozen ocean ). Central Heat Exchanger systems in buildings are used to keep corrosive salt water out of all those multitudes of smaller pipes that exist in all the buildings ( some buildings were designed with central 'air' heating - using the same heat source ).
Unfortunately, corrosion rates also go up with the water temperature and the water used is salt water ( much too huge a volume to use fresh water and such a system would require twice the piping/pumps to return it for reuse ).
Long term design would require pipe replacement, no matter what pipe material was used (even Ryanium, which might last longer but was extremely expensive by comparison).
Solution - Use Concrete Pipe - most of the salt damage to concrete is ice crystals unlikely in this hot environment and only an issue at shutdown ( problem occurs with may repeat cycles of warm/freeze ). Concrete would wear/corrode about as well as metal, and even metals like steel would be a significant cost for such an extensive network of huge pipes. Ceramics and Concrete is one thing that Rapture could manufacture from local materials ( There is no source of iron anywhere near Rapture ). Thick concrete can wear away millimeters per year and last many decades. Thick iron pipe is an alternative for certain situations ( accepting the expected metal wear/replacement ). Large diameter Concrete is still far cheaper.
Structural strength is less important because this is not a high pressure pipe ( as High-temperature Steam would require ) and the liquid would only be circulated at near the outside sea pressure ( small differential of pressure to structurally resist ).
The Material Insulation factor for Concrete Pipe is better than Steel, but still much too low a factor for long distances and the Surface areas involved (even when buried). So a fast high volume flow is needed to make sure sufficient hot water (heat content) arrives at the other end. Large pumps along the routes would be needed to push the water flow the miles across the City.
Once the heat content of the water is expended, it would simply be vented out into the ocean ( again the another reason for the water to be near the same pressure as the ocean ).
Air lines to circulate fresh air ( thru the farms or from the surface intakes on the Lighthouse or the emergency units in the shallows ) would also be large diameter and here would be another use for concrete pipes because of their size. These would require structural strength against the water pressure ( though some of this air could be compressed at the source UP to match the water pressure if needed, to decrease the pipe thickness/size (cheaper) for the air volume flow required. The air would be chilled by the ocean and would be reheated on the receiving end.
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Structural Wiring - How to handle interfacing without 80 billion little wire objects everywhere behind walls ??? :
* Realism can be taken too far ... (tedious/complexity/boring)
* Buss wiring ?? Ceramic Telegraph style drip-proof insulators with exposed wires ( wires still should be enamel coated )
* Armored conduit for exposed concrete wall mountings ( when there are no inner walls to cover them )
* Treat a whole section/room ( 'building block' asset section of a building ) as a single 'mechanism' and have the pipes/wires/vents all be part of one abstracted diagram ???
* Wiring Mini-game ( points for minimal wire to solve all connections, and for extra safety features )
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Garbag-o-Mo (after pneu-mo) :
If You did the Pneumo postal system, then you might as well have had a similar system for emptying all the garbage cans ( it is actually simpler, as the 'routing' is pretty well a fixed destination ). Probably it all would be send to the basement where the Utility Trams would haul it (bulk) to Rapture's Dump/Recycling center. Maybe there were so many corpses lying about because they didn't fit in the Garbago-Mo (Garbage Mobilizer), and chopping them up was too much work.
Sending corpses to the Little Sister Fortress likewise would have required rebuilding the Pneumo system, which wasn't possible because of the %27civil war%27 emergency.
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Direct Dial Telephone System :
A Rotary phone system ( uses relays in a distributed network ) would have been installed in Rapture from the start. There's no point in saying that 'The THINKER' controlled it, as that system would NOT exist yet for 10+ years ( and its a rather mundane task that you DIDN'T need a computer for ).
Rapture phone numbers with 2 letter prefix : "POseidon 271", "FRolic 666", "MInervas 101" ...
Some parts of MMORPG New Rapture may be using an Operator until the Auto-Dial is put back in operation.
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Cable TV Distribution System :
Radio waves go thru water really really poorly. So there would have to be a coax cable system throughout Rapture for all the TVs and Radios we saw in-game. With minimal amplification equipment required ( no huge transmitters and antennas ) it would lower the cost of operating a TV or Radio station ( then the problem is creating content people want to watch/listen to ).
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Air Vents as Secret Passages :
Note that on many of my extended Rapture level maps 'secret passages' thru the air vents ( the square vent covers you can break out and get passage through to access spaces usually blocked by other obstacles ) are indicated for the ones existing in the Solo games.  There would actually be many others ( full systems of them in fact ) on the full MMORPG game maps, as well as various access to other utility systems within the walls.
Rapture is actually a rabbit warren of such pathways needed to access the many systems that keep Rapture livable - air/electricity/heating/water/communications/Pneumo/sewage - all are distributed through every part of the City.
As previously mentioned, Terrain Creation Tools would be provided to Auto-stitch together such details when composing game building interior additions using the standard templates ( and new unique sections would comply with the various interconnects used by the City's utility systems ).
Understand that Splicers also know about these hidden passageways, so don't be surprised if when you come to that sharp blind corner in the vent-way that you meet a Splicer face to face, or some nasty surprise one has left for you.
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Cable System for Radio Transmissions in Rapture :
Radio waves DON'T like Water and DON'T Like Concrete/Metal Walls.
A Radio (and TV) Cable distribution network throughout Rapture would have to be there from the start.
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Power from Hephaestus - Submarine Cables to Outlying Facilities :
* High Voltage Electrical power cables ( well insulated one hopes ) crossing the ocean floor - often several miles long (ala Jaws 2).
* Distances too far to have the utility sub-level tunnels running to. 
* If a Tram tunnel was built the same path, the cable(s) would usually be located inside with it.
* When Heat pipes ( the hot water tubes used in much of Rapture ) cant be used because they are too long, heating can be done purely via electricity. Breathable air can also be transferred ( via compressed air lines ).
* Within the City, large utility conduits are used which are accessible their entire length from an interior space ( except maybe for the largest concrete heat pipes ).
* Some distant locations  (picture Below vvv)  might have their own geothermal power sources ( probably a good idea if you know what happens in Rapture when you are totally without power/heat/air for too long ).
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Vents - Really ? How ?? :
The whole Little Sister 'Vent' thing itself is a bit weird - The Air distribution conduits/passages go on for miles ( and there have to be fan blades to push that air around too ).  Are we expected to believe that the Little Sisters constantly crawled thru them all that way ?
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The end points of most utilities are within local areas where irregularities require fitting them in within more customized layouts.
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Rapture Has Hot Water Heating :
Large volumes of Sea Water is injected into a Volcanic Vents and there is heated up. Then that is taken and moved across Rapture in large ( somewhat insulated ) pipes ( at ambient pressure ) to buildings where a water/air heat exchanger transfers the heat to warm the insides of the buildings ( The ambient near freezing Temperature out in the Ocean is constantly bleeding heat away from Rapture's interior spaces ).
Heated Sea Water is vented into the Ocean at the end ( an open system - no 'return' required ).
Pumping the water is needed. Some flow may be assisted by a temp gradient ( warm water rises ).
Closed loop Heat Exchangers are used to control access/danger from outside pressure, and also to avoid minerals clogging throughout the more complicated interior systems. There would be Hot Water type Radiators used throughout Rapture's interiors ( many in the air systems heating the incoming fresh air ).
The Geothermal Heat/Energy is sourced in the Southern end of Rapture near Hephaestus - in a Geothermal area.
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Fresh Air Transported Across Rapture :
Fresh ( Oxygenated/CO2-cleaned ) Air has to be piped everywhere humans live/work ( or machinery needs it ). The 'Used' Air has to be piped BACK to be restored/refreshed/renewed ( usually by plants )
Air can be compressed ( at an expense ) to make its transport conduits smaller ( volume costs in Rapture ) - crosses MILES in Rapture from its sources.
Compression V = P T Volume equals Pressure times Temperature. ???? How much smaller volume would be used with what pressure to transport the huge amounts of air ( smaller pipes if sent under pressure, pipes need to be stronger ... ).
The AIR system is largely a closed system with the used ( Carbon-dioxide laden ) air restored ( re-oxeginated ) by plants mostly in the Ceres Green Farm Complex ( somewhat centrally located ) and various other concentrations of plants.
RETURN ( used ) air is compressed and pumped at higher pressure to minimize half the system's required piping size. Rapture Geothermal Energy is used to heat the Renewed air to comfortable temperatures and the Heating and Power is used to maintain ( with careful temperature control being required ) the Farms full of plants used to renew the air. Pumps and fans are utilized to move the Air circulating in Rapture. Electrolosis Splitting ( and separating ) Water 'H2O' into Hydrogen 'H2' and breathable Oxygen 'O2' using Electricity systems as backup would exist ( and were leftover from the City's construction period when the Primary AIR systems weren't yet operational ).
Industrial air ( when used in large quantities ) exceeded the farm-base renewal/recycling capacity, and thus the factories made use of Surface air ( siphon ) and were located closer to the Ocean surface on the shallower side of Mt Ryan to minimize the effort to pump the air down into the water depth ( and likewise the exhaust air being vented back to the surface ).
Regulation of Oxygen ( 'O2' ) and Carbon Dioxide ( 'CO2' ) has to be maintained. This would be monitored by Sensors to adjust the Fresh Air flows as needed ( and activate vents/pumps/valves/heat-exchangers ).
All of these systems even when robustly built need to be maintained.
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High Voltage - DANGER :
High voltage wires take Electric Power across Rapture in heavily insulated cables, whether inside buildings or outside in water ( underwater cables ). Junction/switching points would all be inside buildings ( accessible ) .
The "Joins" ( mating surfaces ) between Rapture's Prefabricated Buildings have small standardized interfaces - for connecting Transport/Utilities ( to match up to pass between the connected building segments ).
Inter-connections between building that shift in relation to each other are the liability. Flexibility for their Seals for Utilities and Accessways( including viaducts ) would be required ( an important construction feature ) in the prefab building design. 
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