Pile Field Support Prefabricated Plants Floated into Place
A unique pile support system, combined with earth dikes and superflooding inside an earth drydock to found floating, prefabricated plant structures on the piles, is estimated to have saved...
Carbon Treatment of Drinking Water: N.J. Plant Trying to Get Out Bugs
The federal Environmental Protection Agency wants drinking-water plants in the U.S. to install granular activated carbon treatment. Such would remove synthetic organics in the water. There's...
Subsidence�A Geological Problem with a Political Solution
Subsidence due to groundwater overdraft is a problem common to areas in the western U.S. with minimal water supplies and growing populations. Action to prevent subsidence-related damage...
Computerizing Public Works Design
Computers are an easy way to increase engineering design productivity. This is especially important to public works departments who have decreasing budgets and increasing work loads. This...
San Antonio Freeway: Social-Impact Landmark
San Antonio's McAllister Freeway, or rather its proposed construction, aroused so much furor as to generate national publicity in the early 1970s. Objections arose because...
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...
Political Action�Why Are Engineers Getting Involved�
Two engineering societies�National Society of Professional Engineers and American Consulting Engineers Council�in the past two years have established Political Action Committees. Their...
Japan as Number One (Book Review)
Japan is world champ in rate of growth of productivity of its economy�� 10% a year compared with 0% currently for the U.S. Any of the reasons for this dramatically different economic performance...
Timber Trestle Carries Air Force Bombers
A 12-story high timber trestle, built at Kirtland Air Force Base near Albuquerque, N.M., is the world's largest all-wood structure in terms of board-feet of timber used. Its...
Water Conservation Needs and Implementing Strategies
For several years, water conservation has been espoused and implemented in various locations throughout the country, largely in response to the drought in the West and partially as a political...
Structural Design of Tall Steel Buildings
This is the second in the ASCE five-volume Tall Building series. It is a comprehensive reference record and guide to the design and behavior of tall steel buildings. The volume is divided...
Gabions: Economical, Environmentally Compatible Erosion Control
Not well known in this country, gabions have been in use for about 75 years in Europe. Gabions are wire baskets, filled with rock and wired together to form an erosion control or bank...
Surveying Takes Another Giant Step Forward
The introduction of short-range electronic distance measurement in 1971 revolutionized surveying. Thousands of surveying and engineering firms across the U.S. today routinely use EDM for...
The Personalized System of Instruction: Death Knell for the Lecture�
In most universities, teaching methods have not changed substantially since the invention of the printing press 500 years ago. Yet in recent years, some engineering schools have shown...
Washington METRO: A People's Eye View
Much has been written about the technical aspects of this 101 mile, 86 station system. But as important in Washington, D.C. were the political aspects. Backed by Presidents; scrutinized...
Education in Civil Engineering: Boost Professional Orientation�
ASCE held a Conference on Civil Engineering Education at Madison, Wisc., in April 1979, and these three items seemed to be among those generating most interest: (1)Professional Schools...
Testing Concrete in Place
Although modern concrete construction has developed during the past 60 years, one aspect has remained essentially unchanged�the use of molded cylinders tested in compression to estimate...
IRT�� New York City's First Subway
In October 1904, New York City opened its first subway, the Lexington Avenue IRT line. It was the nation's first subway to operate with trains of cars (Boston's...
Winter Roof Collapses: Bad Luck or Bad Design�
An overview of the collapses in 1978 and 1979 in Chicago and in the Northeast shows that, in most instances, the design codes are adequate. Designers, however, have not paid sufficient...
State-of-the-Art Report on Air-Supported Structures
A structure with a structural system which is dependent on pressurization, either positive or negative, is termed a pressure preloaded structure. Most pressure preloaded structures intended...
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