Infrastructure Solutions: Transit Transformation
Beset by long-term problems related to underinvestment and inadequate maintenance, the U.S. transit sector confronts challenges pertaining to funding, demographic changes, and an increasing array of new...
Solutions for Soft Soils
Because of highly permeable soils and high water tables, deep foundations and basements in southeast Florida have been virtually impossible, limiting the excavation depths in cities like Miami and leading...
Training for Disaster
The structural complexes used to train first responders must accommodate a wide range of theoretical and practical learning. From classroom spaces to built-to-burn assemblies to buildings within buildings,...
Delivering Olmsted Lock and Dam
The Olmsted Locks and Dam, the largest civil works project by the US Army Corps of Engineers since the Panama Canal, became operational in August 2018. More than 30 years in the making, the $3-billion...
Bridging History
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation recently rehabilitated the Frankford Avenue Bridge, also known as the Pennypack Creek Bridge. This stone-arch structure, originally built circa 1697, is the...
Mixed Foundations Resolve Complex Conditions
A 46-story residential tower currently under construction in downtown Boston abuts an existing parking garage, necessitating extreme care to ensure its stability amid tight space constraints. Part of the...
The Present And Future Of Virtual and Augmented Reality In Geotechnical Engineering: This Technology Has Gone Way Beyond Gaming!
One of the greatest challenges with subsurface construction has always been our relative inability to visualize underground conditions that are often comprised of spatially variable soil and rock strata,...
Micropiles Support the "Missing Link": Understanding Load Transfer in Challenging Subgrades
Authorized by Congress in 1944, the Foothills National Parkway partly traverses the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains in Eastern Tennessee. Large sections of the parkway cross high ridges located...
A New Approach to Mitigate Subsidence Problems: A New Approach to Mitigate Subsidence Problems
Mexico City has a decades-old problem with severe consequences: its lacustrine zone is subsiding due to pumping of potable water from the main aquifer. The geotechnical team assigned to work on the problem...
Dried Lakes Do Tell Tales: Seismic Soil Amplification in Mexico City
Mexico City is a vibrant, urban metropolis — a living and breathing example of an "old layered city," where past civilizations coexisted with one another. Standing more than 2.2 km above sea level, surrounded...
Forever Frozen? Future Challenges for Ground
On a typical day, in a typical town, in a city almost anywhere in North America, roads and highways are filled with people going about their everyday business — commuting to work, delivering goods and...
The New Paradigm Of Post-Disaster Reconnaissance: Using Virtual Methods to Enhance Systematic In-Field Data Collection
Virtual reconnaissance is the act of gathering information after an extreme event through virtual means. This information could be data on damaged regions, cultural data for an impacted region, and previous...
Basements On The Beach: Overcoming South Florida's Shoreline Excavation Challenges
The South Florida beachfront is awash with an ever-increasing number of high-rise condominiums. As land becomes scarcer and increasingly expensive, and building regulations change to require above-grade...
A Combo Foundation Does the Job: Piled-Raft Foundation Design for a Supertall Skyscraper
Lotte World Tower is a 123-story, 555-m supertall skyscraper with a 6-level basement for retail and car parking located at Jamsil-dong in Seoul, South Korea. (Editor’s Note: For additional information,...
Learning to Live in Living Order: Adapting Infrastructure to a Changing Climate
We Struck Water! Discovery of Artesian Groundwater Solves A 50-Year-Old Landslide Puzzle
Some unstable slopes fail dramatically, but most can be characterized by gradual, if not monotonously slow, movements. Yet these latter situations can pose a dilemma when a temporary repair is much simpler...
Under-Slab Utility Installation with Aggregate Piers: It's All About Planning
Aggregate pier ground improvement is commonly used in North America to support buildings. The technology has expanded in the last decade thanks to refinement and introduction of new techniques, more rigorous...
A Faster, Cheaper, Better Way to Build a Wall: How a Simple Highway Widening Led to a Patent
When first opened in 1940, and as segments were later added to it, the Pennsylvania Turnpike (Turnpike) was principally a four-lane highway with two eastbound and two westbound lanes. As traffic volume...
Geotechnics of the Suez Canal Construction: 150 Years Old, but Nearly Four Millennia in the Making
Construction of the Suez Canal created one of the most important waterways in the world, connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Its construction from 1854 to 1869 created three cities, Port-Said, Ismailia,...
Immortal and Ethereal Beauty in Stone: The Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal, probably one of the most beautiful structures in the world, has withstood the vagaries of history and the environment. Lengthy tomes have been written on its beauty and the details of the...
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