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....
Highway Maintenance Gets Major Attention at Transportation Meeting
Highways�� their maintenance and recycling especially�� came in for a good share of notice at last January's 57th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Seattle Freeway Park; A Scene of Blissful Contrasts
The Seattle Freeway Park was nominated for honorable mention for OCEA. Although not of massive scale and not dramatically innovative in civil engineering design and construction methods,...
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...
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....
Interstate Highway System
Eventually to cost nearly $90 billion, the Interstate Highway System will connect all U.S. cities of 50,000 and larger, eventually carry 25% of all highway traffic. The article traces...
Steel Frame, Precast Floors Meet Impossible Time Constraints
Only 13 months were allotted for expansion of the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, which meant that construction would have to continue through the winter months with little down...
Automatic Surveying � Updating Canada's Control
With Litton's
Off-Highway Transportation in the Arctic
Because of the terrain and lack of roads in the region, a new breed of off-highway vehicles has seen heavy service in the Arctic and north slope of Alaska. These vehicles include rubber-bag...
New Orleans Grows on Deep Piles
In the New Orleans area, tall buildings must be supported by piles extending at least into the preconsolidated clays at -150-ft (-46-m) or so. Settlement is much too severe and uneven...
Inverted Filter Stabilizes Soil, Stops Erosion
The inverted filter concept was invented by Karl Terzaghi to prevent dams from failing by water piping through the foundation. Laboratory and field testing have refined the necessary specifications...
Porous Friction Course Solves Airport Hydroplaning Problem
Several hydroplaning incidents had occurred at the Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem Regional Airport, N.C. Hydroplaning occurs when hydrostatic pressure builds up in the field of surface...
Stress Ribbon Bridge in Freiburg, Germany
A three span continuous stress ribbon bridge of 75, 130, and 138 ft, was built in downtown Freiburg, W. Germany, for pedestrian traffic. Structural analysis is similar to that of suspension...
Olympic Construction for Olympic Games
Montreal is preparing at full speed for the Olympic Games. The precast, post-tensioned concrete velodrome will seat 10,000. It will be available for conventions, public meetings, exhibits,...
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