Multi-Truss Design for Tower
A modified structural steel system of outrigger trusses and belt trusses bolster the 54-story Equitable Tower West. Located in New York City, the building's structural system...
The Hybrid Arena
The University of North Carolina's new basketball arena at Chapel Hill combines steel and fabric in a dome whose design by David Geiger Associates is based on the principles...
Staggered Truss Adapted to High Rise
The 34-floor Nashville Convention Center Hotel required a structural system that would overcome the tendency to vibrate in the wind. The solution was a modified staggered frame truss,...
Building in Space
Work on the nation's first permanently manned space station has begun. Almost $200 million in contracts for conceptual design for the station were awarded by the National...
Continuum Modeling of Periodic Truss Structures
Procedures for deriving equivalent stiffnesses for an extended Timoshenko beam used to represent truss beams are presented. A typical substructure of a truss is used to calculate these...
Reinforcing Roof Truss Frames Under Load
Without altering the roof structure of an industrial boiler plant, a long-span steel truss frame was modified in place to support heavier loads. The owners of an industrial boiler plant...
Strength and Stiffness Characteristics of Steel Ladder-Type Cable Trays
Ladder-type cable trays identical with the as-built are generally tested to establish their strength and stiffness characteristics. Test data for systems in operating plants, however,...
High Tech Is More Than a Look
Hollow steel section, also known as tubular steel, is being used for its clean dramatic look, its structural efficiency in compression, the economic efficiency of combining structure and...
Rehabbing Historic Buildings
Historic buildings often require structural upgrading before the cosmetics of restoration can be applied. Two case studies are presented here. The Four Seasons Hotel in Seattle required...
Wood Trusses and Other Manufactured Structural Components
Roof trusses, floor trusses, wood I and box beams, and glued-laminated timber are discussed. Some of the major recommendations for future research include improved analytical techniques...
Notched Trusses Give Low-Cost Conversion of Hangars for Jumbo Jets
Physically notching the structural members in a hangar roof solved the problem of moving new DC-10 aircraft into and out of maintenance hangars built for smaller, earlier-generation commercial...
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...
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...
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...
King Post Truss System Cuts Roof Framing Cost by 30%
The design was based on requirements for minimally obstructed sight lines (Robin Hood Dell Open-Air Theater, Philadelphia, Pa.) for outdoor seating and a tight construction budget of $4,500,000....
Railroads, Truss Bridges and the Rise of the Civil Engineer
The huge growth of the railroads during the nineteenth century was the direct result of herculean efforts on the part of civil engineers. Likewise, the development of the civil engineering...
Kansas City Bank Tower Features Water-Filled Columns, Exposed Spandrels
In this first article in a series on recent innovations in structural steel design, the spotlight is on the 20-story Mercantile Bank Tower in Kansas City. This structure features several...
University of Idaho Barrel-Arch Roof Wins Outstanding Structural Engineering Award
The world's longest span wood structure now covers the football stadium at the Univ. of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. The trussed arch consists of an upper and lower wood deck connected...
Plastic Tower Solves Radar Interference
A new nonmetallic tower section has been designed to eliminate major rador interference problems caused by a steel Radar Microwave Link tower. The replacement section is composed of a...
Civil Engineering History Gives Valuable Lessons
Many students, and others, feel the study of engineering history is a frill. Not so, this article suggests. A study of the past can give an engineer better ideas on how to solve a new...
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