An Historical Perspective of Failures of Civil Engineering Works
The blight of failures has smitten civil engineering works since ancient times. An examination of historic cases reveals relationships to contemporary cases that are useful in guiding...
Failure Classifications
A detailed description of the failure classification with respect to the constructed facilities is presented. Author is of the opinion that most reports of failure even of an extensive...
Data Collection and Information Dissemination: Current Efforts and Challenges
The need for the civil engineering community to collect and disseminate information on failures has been discussed widely. It appears that in recent years our profession's reluctance to...
Construction Insurance: An Alternative Unified Risk Insurance
The transfer of risk mechanism (insurance) can be applied to solve problems unique to the construction environment. The proposed program is worthy of support since all segments of the...
Large Mat Foundation Analysis on Expansive Soil
This paper describes a comparison of predicted and observed performance of mat foundations on stiff expansive soil. Foundation performance was predicted using a new computer program BOSEF...
Attaching Steel Members to Reinforced Concrete Elements
A variety of structural systems have been devised to strengthen existing buildings for improved seismic resistance. Strengthening methods currently in use for reinforced concrete structures...
A Perspective on Landslide Dams
The most common types of mass movements that form landslide dams are rock and soil slumps and slides; mud, debris, and earth flows: and rock and debris avalanches. The most common initiation...
Landslide Damming in the Cordillera of Western Canada
Major landslide dams in the Cordillera are a result of rock slope movements, landslides in stratified Pleistocene deposits, and landslides in till or colluvium in steep mountain watersheds....
Landslide Dams in South-Central China
The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers and their tributaries drain mountainous areas of south-central China that are highly susceptible to landslide activity. This paper describes six major cases...
Fault Diagnosis of Hazardous Waste Incineration Facilities Using a Fuzzy Expert System
The use of an expert system along with fuzzy fault tree analysis is discussed in connection with fault diagnosis of a hazardous waste incineration facility. This fault tree is a diagrammatic...
The Asbestos Impasse
Removing asbestos from the nation's buildings is a major task . Consulting engineers can play an important part in the process, locating and quantifying the carcinogenic material,...
Attapulgite: A Clay Liner Solution?
Poor performance of clay liners at waste management facilities has resulted in the EPA mandate of synthetic polymeric liner materials to comply with zero penetration requirements. Laboratory...
U.S.-Japan Coordinated Program on Masonry Research
An overview of the U. S. -Japan Coordinated Program on Masonry Research is presented. The program consists of parallel efforts in Japan and the United States to develop design methods...
Dynamics of 3-D Base Isolated Structures
The work described in this paper concerns the dynamic behavior of asymmetric base isolation systems consisting of laminated rubber bearings and hysteretic dampers. It is shown in this...
Flexural Behavior of Reinforced Masonry Walls and Beams
Many reinforced masonry walls and beams were tested as a part of the U. S. -Japan cooperative research program on masonry building structures. Six concrete block and two clay brick masonry...
Stress-Strain Behavior of Grouted Hollow Unit Masonry
Experimental results from axial stress-strain tests including post-peak response on hollow unit masonry prisms are compared to those of previous researchers....
Engineering Laboratories' Role in Quality
Quality construction of a quality design is one goal which Owners, Design Professionals, and Contractors can all agree is needed if the project is to be truly successful. The Engineering...
Development of Second Generation Plasticized Sulfur Binders as a Paving Material
Plasticized sulphur is produced when melted sulphur is reacted with selected hydrocarbons to produce polysulfides. These polysulfides help retain a 'polymeric'...
Large Scale Testing Facility for the Evaluation of Structural Systems Under Critical Loads
The Charles Lee Powell Structural Systems Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, provides, with a 50 ft. high reaction strong wall and a 120 multiplied by 50 ft. box girder...
Monitoring a Bridge's Pulse
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which collapsed in 1980, is being replaced by the Florida Department of Transportation. The new Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which spans Tampa Bay between Bradenton...
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