Distillery Wastes Treated and Recovered Energy Saves $1 Million/Yr
The waste treatment and energy recovery for the world's largest rum distillery (Bacardi Corp., San Juan, Puerto Rico) uses an aerobic digestion to treat distillery wastes...
Instant Expertise: A Danger of Small Computers
The low cost and easy access afforded by small computers have made it easy for an engineer to become an instant expert. Because low-cost software is available for almost any field of endeavor,...
Building Failures: Design Problems and Solutions
A Building Failures conference of the Engineering Foundation dissected the problems leading to failures and recommended ways to reduce failures. This article discusses value engineering,...
Energy Recovery
In Albany, N.Y. the state and city cooperated in designing and building a refuse-into-steam energy plant that has several unique features. In most such facilities, the entire plant is...
Overtopping of Flood Control Levees and Floodwalls
The risk of overtopping can be significant for flood control levees or floodwalls, and the consequences can be costly and potentially catastrophic. Designs using superiority can force...
Forecasting and Warning for Mt. St. Helens Streams
The eruption of Mt. St. Helens in southern Washington on May 18, 1980, created great devastation both by the blast itself and by mudflows generated by melting snow and ice. Several hydrologic...
Small Hydropower Development for Mining Industry
In deep mines, large refrigeration systems are employed to condition the working air to help control temperature and humidity. Large quantities of water are required to be brought into...
Software Development: For Experts Only?
Civil engineering firms tend to buy ready-made software rather than develop it themselves. But if existing software for specific applications is unavailable or of poor quality, then the...
Hazardous Waste Landfill: Some Lessons from New Jersey
There are four key elements in a secure, hazardous waste landfill: a bottom liner; a leachate collection system; a cover; and the natural hydrogeologic setting. Each of these elements...
Hazardous Waste Management in California: Lessons for the U.S.
California has what many say is the best hazardous waste management program in the U.S. In fact, the Federal government used the California program as the basis for a national plan for...
Thermal Destruction Options for Controlling Hazardous Wastes
Incineration will play an increasingly important role in the management of hazadous waste in the United States. Properly designed and operated incineration systems are capable of destroying...
Industry Challenges EPA on Whether Certain Wastes are Hazardous or Not
Before the U.S. can clean up its hazardous wastes, it must first decide which wastes are hazardous, which not. The case histories presented here show that this decision is not always easy...
Willow Island Aftermath: The Limits of OSHA
In April 1978 a natural-draft hyperbolic concrete cooling tower under construction at Willow Island, W.Va. collapsed. Fifty-one workers, suspended on a scaffold supported mainly by a layer...
Public Works Directors�Why Do Some Stand Out�
William Hennessy, Commissioner of New York State's DOT began as a junior engineering aide, went into real estate acquisitions for the state and later entered the state's...
Tangshan Rebuilds after Mammoth Earthquake
The City of Tangshan, China was totally devastated in 1976 by a major earthquake. Over 240,000 people were killed in one of history's greatest disasters. The quake had a Richter...
World's First Iron Bridge
In 1779, using a new man-made material, skilled English workmen built a single-span bridge of cast iron over a steep river gorge about 140 miles northwest of London. The result was a 424-ton...
Big Thompson Flood Exposes Need for Better Flood Reaction System to Save Lives
The actions people took in response to warnings of disaster in the Big Thompson flood of 1976 affected their chances for survival. No one who climbed the side of the canyon was killed...
Sludge Pyrolysis: How Big a Future�
Pyrolysis is the destructive distillation of combustible elements by heat in the total absence of oxygen. Partial pyrolysis or starved air combustion is the gasification of a material...
Disaster-Caused Increases in Construction Costs
When major disasters do more damage than the local building industry can repair, the resultant shortage of repair resources causes prices to escalate. Examination of the factors that affect...
Engineering and Contracting Procedure for Foundations
The object of this manual,
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