Advanced Fracture Control Procedures for Deepwater Platforms and Compliant Towers
This paper describes an integrated approach to fracture control problems � applied first as a necessary adjunct to the authors' own engineering practice, then in developing...
Offshore Platform Steel Specification
The discovery in the 1980's of local brittle zones (LBZ's) in and near the heat-affected zone (HAZ) of the fabrication welds in certain offshore platform steels...
Monitoring and Quantifying Rate-Limited Mass Transfer Using Geoelectrical Measurements
Non-Fickian solute-transport behavior has been observed at research and aquifer remediationsites in diverse geologic settings. Anomalous behavior such as concentration rebound, long breakthrough...
Maintenance of Diaphragm-Girder Connections
Fatigue cracking at diaphragm-girder connections and at similar connections of cross-frames and floorbeams have been common in steel highway bridges for the past 20 or 30 years. Fatigue...
Scenic-Bridge Strengthening (Available in Structural Engineering Special Issue only)
Built in 1937, California's Big Creek Bridge�a double-arch crossing with half-arch side spans�was due for a seismic retrofit. Challenged by the structure's unique...
For the Duration
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developed a new grouting method called duration grouting when constructing the foundations for the Portugues Dam in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The site is marked...
Tall Order
Successive earthquakes have damaged the 32-story, 460 ft (140 m) tall Los Angeles City Hall, built in 1926. Masonry infill and concrete walls have cracked, and the terra cotta cladding...
Shear-wall Retrofit
With the effects of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake still lingering and another quake looming sometime in the future, engineers faced with retrofitting the Pacific Gas & Electric...
Fracturing for In-situ Bioremediation (Available only in
A pilot-scale evaluation of an integrated pneumatic fracturing and bioremediation system demonstrated the enhanced removal of BTX from a gasoline-contaminated, low-permeability soil formation....
The Northridge Fractures: Are We Learning the Right Lessons?
After the Northridge earthquake in January 1994, engineers found problems with special moment-resisting frames. There were multiple facture modes, and typical damage involved primary crack...
NDE for Steel Bridges
Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) is the only way to detect fatigue cracks hidden by the paint on steel bridges, and FHWA-sponsored research into the problem has been given highest priority....
Bridge Design: Reality Bites Back
Many bridge engineers tend to ignore the process nature of reality, the fact that everything in this universe changes from moment to moment. When they are given the responsibility for...
Thermal Cycling of Thin and Thick Ply Composites
An experimental study was conducted to determine the effects of ply thickness in composite laminates on thermally induced cracking and changes in the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE)....
Behavior of RC Beams under Sustained Load
Experimental results of eight reinforced concrete beams under 3-month's sustained load, with the ratio of shear span to depth equal to 2.5, are reported. It is shown by tests that the...
Rational Limits for Longitudinal Steel in Concrete Columns
Current limits for the amount of longitudinal reinforcement in concrete columns were established more than 60 years ago. Commercial grades of reinforcement in 1930 were about half as strong...
Fracture Analysis of Bolted Timber Connections
Application of fracture mechanics concepts to splice connections where bolts load timber members perpendicular to the grain is discussed. Attention is given to prediction of the load level...
Control of Random Crack Formation in Portland Cement Concrete Pavements
Random crack formation in concrete pavements, which is mainly due to the development of tensile stress caused by temperature-induced volumetric change and shrinkage deformation at early...
NDE for Steel Bridges: FHWA Research, Past, Present and Future
Over the last two decades the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has sponsored numerous research and development projects in the area of nondestructive evaluation of steel bridges....
Acoustic Emission Monitoring of Steel Bridges
Global nondestructive monitoring techniques are of great significance for rapid monitoring of bridges. One promising technique involves monitoring the microseismic events (Acoustic Emissions,...
Acoustic Emission Monitoring of Fatigue Crack Growth in HSLA-80 Steel Box Beams
An acoustic emission is a transient elastic wave generated by the rapid release of energy from a localized source within a material. There can be many sources of acoustic emission in a...
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