Northridge Postscript: Lesson on Steel Connections
Immediately after the Northridge earthquake in January 1994, the general concensus was that steel-framed buildings performed extremely well. Later, inspectors were surprised to find weld...
In the Wet
The concept of using large diameter vertical cylinder piles of steel and concrete is not new. Vertical cylinders constructed in pneumatic caissons go back at least 70 years. Steel cylinders...
Composite Sketch
Composite materials from the aerospace and military sectors are showing promise in highway, bridge and transportation applications. Some of the current and potential applications of composites...
Not Your Father's Concrete
A simple mixture of water, aggregate and cement, conventional concrete is environmentally-friendly by nature. But with landfills bloating and hazardous wastes becoming increasingly difficult...
San Francisco CSO
Today, even a light rain can overload San Francisco's combined sewer overflow (CSO) system, sending untreated sewage and stormwater into the bay and ocean. This is especially...
Impact-Echo Strikes Home
Diagnosing flaws without destroying the structure is the first step to cost-effective repairs. Impact-echo is one of the more successful nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods that have...
Triumphant Arches
This year's Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award of Merit goes to the Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge in Tennessee, the first precast concrete segmental arch bridge...
Advances in Underground Pipeline Engineering II
The first international conference on Advances in Underground Pipeline Engineering was held in 1985. Some 50 authors and over 300 delegates from 20 countries took part in the presentations...
New Construction Materials Proliferate in Japan
Research and development of new construction materials is extensive in Japan, and many new materials are being used in Japan now. The author analyzes the research environment in Japan,...
More Parking Above
Vertical expansion of six (6) new floors of parking garage on top of four (4) floors of existing structure that was built over three decades ago, adding 155,000 square foot of new structure....
Wider Ride to the Rainbow
Engineers on the project to widen the entrance to the Rainbow Bridge between New York and Ontario let the aesthetics of the Niagara Falls setting dictate their design decisions. The challenge...
Reliability and Response Control of R/C Buildings
A damage model is summarized for the assessment of seismic damage of reinforced concrete structures. The model is to evaluate specific buildings that were damaged in Mexico City during...
Checking Concrete Growth
When the Tennessee Valley Authority built its dams in the 1930s, instrumentation installed in the massive concrete detected a defect that would later cause major problems: concrete growth...
The Winds of Change?
In 1992, Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki combined to generate an estimated $30 billion in damage. The storms also generated their share of reports and recommendations about how best to mitigate...
Generalized Object Control and Assembly for Space Robots
This paper presents a Generalized Object Control framework which subsumes Unified Motion/Force Control and Object Impedance Control. Under this framework new forms of assembly primitives...
Drivetrain Design, Incorporating Redundancy, for an Autonomous Walking Robot
An often overlooked, though critical, component of a mobile robot is the drivetrain. To achieve the ambitious programmatic goals of an extra-terrestrial, planetary robotic explorer, a...
The Kinematic Design of a Robotic Large Space Structure Construction Service
Researchers at the University of Maryland's Robotics Research Lab are applying a kinematic rapid proto-typing methodology to the development of a commercial robotics service for the construction...
Design Techniques for Rectangular Lunar Modules
This paper discusses relevant issues concerning the design and performance of cubical lunar modules. Previously, these modules have shown to be a possible solution for living and working...
Erectable Truss Hardware for Large Space Structures
The KATLOK connector is a truss structure connector that was designed to be compatible with manual assembly by an astronaut in an extra-vehicular activity (EVA) suit, telerobotic assembly...
Construction Operations on the OUTPOST Platform in Orbit
GLOBAL OUTPOST, Inc., with significant NASA assistance, proposes to place an External Tank (ET) of the space shuttle in orbit for commercial purposes. The OUTPOST Platform is designed...
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