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...
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...
Quality Assurance/Quality Control: Alternative Approaches to Reduce Failures
Efforts to achieve quality on construction projects usually center around code-compliant design, thorough specifications, and careful inspection. The alarming increase in both the frequency...
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...
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...
Future Containerships from a Ship Owner's Viewpoint
This paper is a presentation of the author's projection of size and design constraints of future containerships. There is a discussion of containers and on-deck container...
Design and Construction of the Spirit Lake Outlet Tunnel, Mount St. Helens, Washington
In 1982, a governmental task force was formed to evaluate the hazard posed by the blockage of Spirit Lake that resulted from the eruption of Mount St. Helens in May 1980. An analysis was...
Problem Solving Using Expert System Techniques
There are basically two approaches to problem solving currently used in expert systems: the derivation approach and the formation approach. The derivation approach involves deriving a...
DAPS: An Expert System for Damage Assessment of Protective Structures
An automated reasoning code for the damage assessment of protective structures (DAPS) is being developed within the Air Force. Protective structures in this context will be synonymous...
Seismic Risk Analysis System
The Seismic Risk Analysis System was developed to model the expertise of experienced engineers and researchers and to provide consultation to the users. The Seismic Risk Analysis System...
Design of a Knowledge Based System to Convert Airframe Geometric Models to Structural Models
Airframe manufactures who use CAD tools to design airframes and finite element analysis software to analyze them, still generate the finite element models using semi-manual methods. Although...
An Expert System for Flood Estimation
This study was made to investigate the feasibility of expert systems for solving certain engineering problems. A prototype system was developed to demonstrate the applicability of these...
Developments in Expert Systems for Design Synthesis
The applicability of expert systems to design synthesis is demonstrated. This is achieved by means of inference rules which can interpret design specifications in order to produce designs....
Knowledge Engineering in Object and Space Modeling
This paper gives a description of Topology-1, which attempts to provide a tool for object and space modeling through the use of knowledge engineering techniques. It elaborates the system...
Qualitative Physics and the Prediction of Structural Behavior
A key need in the application of expert systems to structural engineering design is the ability to predict structural deformation and stresses in the absence of a quantitative model. The...
Manpower Planning?Make a Moral Contract
One key to manpower planning is forecasting realistic and accurate manhour projections for work in-house or work in the proposal stage. A method used by the author to project manhours...
Business Planning for Engineering Projects
Fluor Engineers is a full-service international engineering firm serving the process and energy industries. In conjunction with other Fluor subsidiaries, Daniel Constructors and Fluor...
Assessment of Safety Impacts of Highway Projects
In this paper the safety impact of highway improvement and maintenance activities is examined in terms of accident reduction potentials of these activities. There are three causes of accident:...
RRR Design Standards: Cost-Effectiveness Issues
The Transportation Research Board study of geometric design standards for RRR projects is currently trying to match the logic of cost-effectiveness to the mostly judgmental process of...
Return to search