Seepage Cutoff Wall Installed Through Dam is Construction First
A new construction technique has been developed which provides a permanent solution to the foundation problems at Wolf Creek Dam. Muddy flows and sinkholes discovered in 1968 led to a...
Steel Plate Shear Walls Resist Lateral Load, Cut Costs
Two new buildings have a seldom-used stiffening system�� steel plate shear walls. Reasons for using them, rather than reinforced concrete shear walls or steel or concrete rigid frames,...
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...
Concrete Microwave Tower is Award Winner
A microwave tower in Florida was built of cast-in-place concrete instead of steel, because: (1)Concrete was considered more esthetic than steel; and (2)concrete was more resistant than...
$20 Million for Billet Grinding Eliminates Waste
Republic Steel Corp. invested $20,000,000 in the world's largest billet grinding facility for conditioning steel, in Canton, Ohio. It was nominated for the 1979 Outstanding...
Largest Inverted Shell Houses Two Theaters
A meeting center in Albany, New York, has such a complex shape that it took months just to design its surface mathematically. Perched on a pedestal, it is nearly elliptical in plan. From...
Stub Girders Cut Steel Use
One innovation in steel building construction, now 10 years old, is the steel stub girder floor framing system. By using a girder that is a composite of steel girder, metal deck and lightweight...
Redesigning the Auto: A Key to Solving the U.S. Energy
The automobile is a tremendous consumer of energy. The entire transport sector uses 26% of the energy used in the U.S.�� and half the oil. In fact, the American auto alone consumes one-ninth...
Threaded Rebars Spin Down Time
A rebar splicing technique was a major factor in saving two year's construction time on California's $33 million, 9000 ft (2743 m) Antioch Bridge. Rebar splicing...
Repair and Strengthening of Old Steel Truss Bridges
During the early 1900's, numerous pin jointed steel bridge trusses were constructed throughout the United States. In the intervening years, these trusses were replaced by...
Foundation Soil Preload Saves $164,000
Soils in the lower Mississippi valley are highly compressible and present a challenge to structural foundation designers. Rather than support power plant structures on piles, one design...
Fatigue Cracking�Problem for Welded Steel Bridges
A recent problem with welded steel bridges is fatigue cracking at welded details. Fatigue cracks begin in small flaws or discontinuities at welded connections and grow to a critical size...
New River Gorge Bridge: World's Longest Steel Arch
For 45 years, the Bayonne Bridge had reigned as the world's longest steel arch bridge. No longer. The New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia has a steel arch spanning 1700...
Building New Bridges from Old
The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway Co. needed a new 150-ft (64-m) two-span railroad bridge. Minimum time and low cost were the demands. In response, the designers used steel girders...
Dredge-and-Fill Saves $2 Million at Steel Mill Built in Swamp
The Georgetown Texas Steel Corp., in late 1973, accepted the challenge of developing a previously cleared cypress swamp on the east side of the Neches River across from Beaumont, Texas....
Aerated-Pile Composting: A Promising New Alternative for Sewage Sludge Disposal
In the past several years, traditional methods of sludge disposal such as incineration and ocean dumping have come under fire from environmental groups and the EPA. This has sparked a...
New River Gorge Bridge: World's Longest Steel Arch
The world's longest steel arch bridge, spanning the New River Gorge Bridge in the south central area of West Virginia, is scheduled to be completed in Sept. 1977. The main...
Exxon's Offshore Platform Nearly Doubles Water-Depth Record
In 1976, Exxon erected near Santa Barbara (Los Angeles metropolitan area) the Hondo platform, in 850 ft of water. This is nearly twice the previous record depth established in the North...
Bridge Erection by Launching is Fast, Safe, and Efficient
The construction of long prestressed concrete bridges without using formal falsework or self-supporting launching falsework is described. Using the so-called incremental launching method...
Precast Veneer Replaced By All-Precast Structure
Utilizing engineering solutions to architectural problems greatly enhanced the architectural appearance of this building. Long-span prestressed, light weight concrete beams, post-tensioned...
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