Selection of Performance Levels for Longitudinal Barriers
There is a demand within the highway community for multi-service level safety features, including traffic barriers. The need has become more acute in recent years as revenues decline and...
Transitioning End Terminal A TRENDtm for the Future
The highway engineer frequently starts from a position where an identified highway element is causing serious injuries or fatalities to motorists on the nation's highways....
End Treatments for Deep Beam Highway Guardrail
End treatments on highway guardrail serve two functions: (1) to make the end safe in case of an impact there, and (2) to provide anchorage in case of an impact adjacent to the end. Two...
What is a Forensic Engineer?
A forensic engineer is one who is concerned with the relationship and application of engineering facts to legal problems. He is an acknowledged expert who investigates construction-related...
Failure Investigations for Forensic Engineering
Failure investigations related to construction Industry is described in detail in the article. A failure investigation is one of the most demanding of engineering undertakings. It requires...
What to Do When a Failure Occurs
When a major building problem involving structural failure occurs, action should begin immediately to determine the damage or failure and detect the underlying problem. This paper will...
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...
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...
Preliminary Seismic Risk Maps for Puget Sound
Ground shaking during Puget Sound earthquakes is characterized by irregularly shaped areas of high intensity ground motion, not all of which are correlated with soil type. Simulation of...
Seismic Acceleration Maps for Oregon
To evaluate the seismic hazard for the Corps dams in the Portland District, operating basis earthquakes (OBE) and maximum credible earthquakes (MCE) were established for seismic zones...
Systems Model for Water Supply Following Earthquakes
The water supply for San Francisco is described with emphasis on the city's auxiliary water distribution network, which provides fire protection for the most heavily built-up...
Seismic Resistance of an Elevated Water Tank?A Case Study
Current knowledge of earthquake risk and structural response has raised concern about the safety of elevated water storage tanks which were constructed several decades ago. This paper...
Earthquake Risks to Utah Water and Gas Systems
Designed to guide local earthquake hazard reduction programs, this study estimates direct aggregate earthquake damage to Davis and Salt Lake County utilities. For making these loss estimates,...
A Case Study of the Behavior of Seaport Facilities During the 1978 Miyagi-Ken-Oki Earthquake
This paper assesses seismic response characteristics of seaport facilities during the 1978 Miyagi-Ken-Oki earthquake by (a) compiling and assessing documented information from post-earthquake...
The Effects of the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake on Underground Water & Sewer Pipelines
The 1985 Mexico City Earthquake left thousands dead and many thousands more without shelter. The visible damage was immense and terrible, and familiar to people around the world through...
Engineering Implications of Impoundment of the Indus River by an Earthquake-Induced Landslide
Historical records and physical evidence indicate that in the Himalayas of northern Pakistan a huge landslide dam was caused by an earthquake in 1840. The dam blocked the Indus River,...
What is an Expert System
Knowledge-based expert systems (KBES) have created much excitement in the civil engineering computer user community. KBES evoke expectations of full-blown Artificial Intelligence (AI)...
Expert System Tools for Civil Engineering Applications
Expert system software tools have played a major role in expediting program development. Some problems should not and possibly cannot be solved by current expert system technology. For...
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