Cofferdams Protecting New York Bridges from Ship Collisions
During the past few decades, there have been a number of cases where ships have rammed bridge piers, triggering the superstructure's collapse. The most tragic case was the...
Failure of the Breakwater at Port Sines, Portugal
The objectives of the Port Sines Investigation Panel were to collect perishable data on and to identify causes of the failure on February 26, 1978, of the rubble mound breakwater at Port...
Preventing Another Sunshine Skyway Bridge Disaster
America will not soon forget the tragic collapse of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge into Tampa Bay almost two years ago. That accident was a costly lesson in the crucial importance of protecting...
An Improved Design for Grain Storage Tanks Solves Problem of Brittle Failures
The welded tank features fracture-tough steel and tube stiffeners to overcome problems evident in several failures of major tanks in recent years. Used extensively for grain storage in...
Behind the Sines, Protugal Breakwater Failure
This article highlights a report on the possible causes of failure of the massive, $178 million breakwater at Sines, Portugal. This was the largest breakwater of its kind in the world....
Causes and Preventions of Lamellar Tearing: Engineer's Notebook
Within the past 10 years, a steel cracking problem, lamellar tearing, has arisen after welding of thicker sections and higher-strength steels. A separation underlying a weld joining plate...
Steel Cable-Stayed Bridges: Can They Compete in the U.S.?
During the past decade, concrete bridge designs have been winning more bids for contracts than steel cable-stayed bridges. Reasons for this trend are examined. A brief evolution of bridge...
Trouble Shooting ChemicaLly Resistant Masonry
This paper is a series of case histories showing specifically how lack of understanding of the nature of the materials and their proper uses has caused failure in design, specification,...
Bloomington Lake�Potomac River Water Resources Project
The recently completed $174 million Bloomington Lake project has improved flood control and water quality to the benefit of millions of people downstream. The headwaters of the Potomac...
Olmos Dam Modifications
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Denny Creek: The Toughest Bridge Washington State Ever Built
The story of how highway planners and engineers in Washington State's Department of Transportation were stopped from building a highway and viaduct through a pristine wilderness...
Structural Safety
Future building codes will go far beyond the classical emphasis on dimensioning, calculations, and specification writing. Emphasis will shift from scientific thinking to strategic thinking,...
Some Proposals for Reducing Structural Failures
Illinois is one of the few states requiring a Structural Engineer's License: a P.E. alone is not enough to practice structural engineering there. Unfortunately, even in Illinois,...
State-of-the-Art Report on Finite Element Analysis of Reinforced Concrete
This comprehensive state-of-the-art report contains a summary of the special features of finite element analysis applied to reinforced concrete, including: constitutive relationships,...
Inspecting Town Bridges in Connecticut
A federally financed inventory and inspection program for town bridges was carried out in Connecticut. This article describes how the authors' firm inspected 343 bridges of...
Engineers Notebook: Checking Capacities of Eccentrically Loaded Columns on an Existing Bridge
This article focuses on the structural analysis of eccentrically loaded columns. A simple and novel graphical technique for determining the load-carrying capacity of the columns is presented....
Replacing Corroded Cables on a Cable-Stayed Bridge
The cable-stayed bridge across Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo is among the longest bridges of its type. But after years of service, corroded cables threatened to snap, which would...
Slope Stability Program
This article includes an entire computer program, written in BASIC computer language. The program is a simplified version of programs which have been written for large computer systems....
Calendar: 1983 Brooklyn Bridge Centennial Calendar
Photos include: Spanning the River; The Caissons; The New York Caisson and Tower; Construction of the Towers; The Anchorages; Cable Making; The Cables Complete; Manhattan Tower; The New...
Historic Preservation of Engineering Works
The preservation of historic industrial and transportation engineering works is examined. Preservation is reviewed in the context of history, and preservation through recording is explored....
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