Peer Review: Old Concept in New Situations
In the past, clients treated their engineering consultants as the fallible human beings they are. No longer is this true. Today there is more pressure, by clients and courts, for error-free...
Trench Cave-In: Contractor's Responsibility
The article Can Trench Cave-In Deaths Be Cut� in CIVIL ENGINEERING�ASCE, September 1977, states that the owner's engineer should accept responsibility for the design of temporary...
Major Cause of Earthquake Damage is Ground Failure
Ground failure is one of the most destructive effects of large earthquakes. For example, about 60% of the damage during the 1964 Alaska earthquake was a consequence of ground failure....
West Coast Consulting Firm Gets Large Minicomputer to Keep Pace with Growth
This article tells the story of computer use in a medium-sized consulting engineering firm in the water resources field, Boyle Engineering Co., of Newport Beach, Calif. In the mid 1960's,...
Small Midwestern Consultant Introduces Inhouse Desk Top Computer
This article traces the history of engineering and surveying calculations in a small civil-geotechnical consulting office in Rock Island, Ill., W.J. Reese & Associates. The expanding...
Controlling Tunnel-Lining Costs�Tips for Owners and Designers
Emphasis is placed on those aspects of design likely to lead to cost savings or the avoidance of unanticipated extra cost during construction. Tunnel lining design requires knowledge about...
Minority Consulting Engineers Speak Out
A sampling of opinion from the point of view of black consulting engineers. Quota systems are discussed as are financial problems, attitudes of banks, joint-ventures, abuse of minority-participation...
Dredge-and-Fill Saves $2 Million at Steel Mill Built in Swamp
The Georgetown Texas Steel Corp., in late 1973, accepted the challenge of developing a previously cleared cypress swamp on the east side of the Neches River across from Beaumont, Texas....
Reliability and Limit States Approaches to Design
Increasingly, designers of structures and other civil engineering projects will be designing in these ways. What is the reliability approach? It is based in part on the fact that the magnitude...
Personnel Management of Engineering Organizations
Which personnel management approaches are most successful, and why? We surveyed ASCE's Sections and Branches in search of answers. And reviewed the 120 or so nominations in...
Modern Concrete Structures Survive Romanian Earthquake
On March 4, 1977, 35 buildings collapsed during a severe earthquake (7.2 on the Richter scale) in Bucharest, Romania. Thirty-two of the 35 were older structures, erected before World War...
Dominance of Special Interests Dashes NYC Hopes for Recovery
How well is New York City doing now? Is it really on the way to recovery? Since the landmark report by the Temporary Commission on City Finances was released over a year ago, very little...
Minority Role Models
One reason there are so few minorities in engineering is because they have so few role models. It is difficult for today's young minority engineer�who may feel all alone....
Secret to Constructing Pittsburgh's New Busway Within Budget
The owner of Pittsburgh's new South Busway worked hard to create a climate of cooperation, good will, mutual trust, and team work among owner, consulting engineer, contractor,...
Peaking Power from Stored Air
Pumped storage has been recognized as a means of supplying additional electric power generation capacity during peak load periods for quite a while. However, such facilities are traditionally...
Transforming a Meeting from Confrontation to Cooperation
Public meetings are frequently prescribed as part of major public works projects; unfortunately, they often become scenes of massive confrontation, rather than cooperation. What can be...
Lake Superior Rail-to-Water Coal Terminal Wins Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award
During 1976, the nation's largest Western coal transshipment terminal, the Superior Midwest Energy Terminal, began operation in Superior, Wisconsin. This event marks the opening...
Liability Claims Against Soils Firms Slashed Dramatically
In 1969, consulting engineering firms engaged on soil and foundation engineering were virtually uninsurable. Taking the bull by the horms, a group of 10 soil and foundation engineering...
Small Hydro-Electric Units � Where to Find Them
A consulting firm explored the possibility of small hydro-electric units. A table lists manufacturers contacted and their responses. In general, the number of suppliers for small hydro...
Stability of Structures Under Static and Dynamic Loads
Proceedings of the International Colloqium on Stability of Structures Under Static and Dynamic Loads, held in Washington, D.C., May 17-19, 1977. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation....
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