World's Tallest Offshore Platform Stands in 1025 Ft of Water
During the summer and fall of 1977 and 1978, Shell Oil installed the world's deepest drilling and production platform in water. Located in 1025-ft of water at the Cognac tract...
Jacked Pipe Provides Roof for Underground Construction in Busy Urban Area
Construction of a major underground station for the metro in Antwerp, Belgium was done in a busy downtown area employing a method that virtually eliminated ground subsidence. The method...
Winter Roof Collapses: Bad Luck or Bad Design�
An overview of the collapses in 1978 and 1979 in Chicago and in the Northeast shows that, in most instances, the design codes are adequate. Designers, however, have not paid sufficient...
Current Trends in Design and Construction of Embankment Dams
This report is concerned primarily with the embankment itself although foundation and abutment treatment are considered essential elements of the embankment. It covers a broad range of...
Guide to Investigation of Structural Failures
This guide contains a broad range of instructions and suggestions regarding structural failures. Topics include failure causes by project type, failure causes by structural type, failure...
Behavioral Factors in Selection of Technologies
Where a well-known technology is provided to a population that has long been acquainted with its use, the problems of predicting patterns of social behavior are relatively simple. The...
Intermediate Service Levels in Water Distribution
This paper is concerned with design standards for secondary water distribution networks. Based on field studies in the Middle East and Africa, mathematical equations were developed for...
What Contractors Think About Prefabricated Piping
Among 190 of the largest users of pipe, 77% now use large-scale prefabricated piping. These users report an average saving, using prefabricated pipe versus conventional pipe, of 23%. Before...
$70 Million for Dam Inspection
In 1972, Congress passed the National Dam Inspection Act, requiring the U.S. Corps of Engineers to inspect and inventory all dams in the United States; but few dams were inspected. Then...
Major Cause of Earthquake Damage is Ground Failure
Ground failure is one of the most destructive effects of large earthquakes. For example, about 60% of the damage during the 1964 Alaska earthquake was a consequence of ground failure....
Citizen Participation for Successful Village Water Supply
In developing nations, two keys to the success of village water supply projects are citizen planning and the use of the appropriate technology. The two are related. Involvement of citizens...
Reservoir Outlet Extended Above Silt to Prevent Clogging
Accumulation of silt in an on-stream water storage reservoir almost completely buried the concrete tower originally provided as an outlet intake shaft for releasing stored water through...
Germany, Belgium and Los Angeles have Mandatory Design Review for Major Structures
The report of the engineering investigation into the causes of the collapse of the Hartford Coliseum space truss cited design deficiencies as the cause of failure. That report also says...
Alternatives to End-of-Pipe Treatment
End-of-pipe treatment must be replaced by innovative, in-process changes if industrial plants are to creatively meet the upcoming 1983 EPA pollution control requirements. By-product recovery,...
Vibroreplacement and Reinforced Earth Unite to Strengthen a Weak Foundation
Two relatively new engineering concepts in the U.S. were successfully used to solve a difficult soils problem. A highway skirting Idaho's Lake Pend Oreille was built on a...
Minnesota Interceptor Sewer Breaks New Ground
The Beltline Interceptor is a gravity interceptor sanitary sewer which has its outlet in St. Paul and its beginning in White Bear Lake. Major requirements called for a design which would...
An Experience in Standardization of Nuclear Power Plants
This article outlines successful efforts at design of five standardized nuclear units, in four different states in the U.S.A., for a group of five utilities. The Standard Power Block,...
The Field Engineer: Political and Legal Scapegoat�
The publicly-employed engineer can be in a vulnerable legal position. A case history is described in which a field engineer was indicted on criminal charges after a bridge collapse (during...
Teton Dam Failure
In June 1976, Teton Dam in Idaho failed. It was an earthfill dam 305 ft high. It failed by piping through the impermeable core of the dam. Among factors believed contributing to failure:...
Why Do Bridges Fail�
From the study of 143 bridge failures that occurred throughout the world from 1847 to 1975, it is found that there are nine categories of failure. The most frequent of these is failure...
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