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...
International Seminar on Probabilistic and Extreme Load Design of Nuclear Plant Facilities
Proceedings of the International Seminar on Probabilistic and Extreme Load Design of Nuclear Plant Facilities, held in San Francisco, California, August 22-24, 1977. Sponsored by the ASCE...
Electronic Computation
Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on Electronic Computation, held at the Mudd Law Building, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, August 6-8, 1979. Sponsored by the Committee...
Environmental Epidemiology and Sanitation
This paper reviews the key variables determining the transmission of excreta-related diseases, sets out an environmental rather than biological classification of these infections, and...
Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics
The Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics is the tenth in a series of Specialty Conferences sponsored by the ASCE Geotechnical Division (formerly the Soil Mechanics and...
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....
Los Angeles Reservoir is Safe From Earthquakes
The Los Angeles Reservoir was nominated for the 1978 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award. The reservoir, which replaces the Van Norman Reservoir damaged during the 1971 San...
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...
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....
Advances in Civil Engineering Through Engineering Mechanics
Proceedings of the Second Annual Engineering Mechanics Division Specialty Conference, held in North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, May 23-25, 1977. Sponsored by the...
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
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...
Return to search