Top-to-Bottom Construction in High-Rise Buildings
This top-to-bottom construction method, called jackblock is a cousin of lift-slab. The main components are the jack and concrete block, hence the name. The top story of a building is constructed...

Design and Construction of Long-Span Metal Culverts
Long-span metal culverts are built of corrugated-metal plates bolted together. They have spans exceeding 15 ft. Principal applications include use as drainage structures, grade separations,...

1977 Clean Air Act: Cheapest Way to Clean Up the Environment�
What impact is the Clean Air Act of 1977 having on American industry? Is the law the most cost effective way to clean up the nation's air? The power industry dislikes the...

World's Tallest Offshore Platform Stands in 1025 Ft of Water
During the summer and fall of 1977 and 1978, Shell Oil installed the world's deepest drilling and production platform in water. Located in 1025-ft of water at the Cognac tract...

Construction Risk: Who Pays�
A report is given on the January 1979 Construction Risk and Liability Sharing Conference sponsored by ASCE's Construction Division Committees on Contract Administration and...

Underground Buildings Save Energy
While properly designed underground buildings use less energy for heating and cooling, that's not always the reason they're underground. For example, San Francisco's...

Washington METRO: A People's Eye View
Much has been written about the technical aspects of this 101 mile, 86 station system. But as important in Washington, D.C. were the political aspects. Backed by Presidents; scrutinized...

Largest Inverted Shell Houses Two Theaters
A meeting center in Albany, New York, has such a complex shape that it took months just to design its surface mathematically. Perched on a pedestal, it is nearly elliptical in plan. From...

Modern Engineering Saves Troubled Dam
A badly deteriorated and potentially unsafe dam has been recycled. The 135-ft-high, 300-ft-long LaPrele Dam is a concrete slab-and-buttress structure. Its sloping face slab has leaked...

Coming This Year: Reusable Link with Space
Scheduled for launch in early 1980, the Space Shuttle is the first reusable space vehicle. It will reduce space flight cost, saving an estimated $11.2 billion between 1980 and 1991. This...

Building Skyscrapers in Orbit
NASA plans to build a host of large structures (communications antennas, remote-sensing radiometers, solar power satellites, etc.) in space. Three ways to build them are: (1)Fabricate...

Has Metrication Run Out of Gas�
The U.S. is the only major country not to have adopted the International System of Units (SI) as its official measurement system, but the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 established official...

Industry Upgrades Technician Training
Here is one example where regulations were imposed by industry�voluntarily. The Washington Area Council of Engineering Laboratories, Inc., developed a program to certify technicians testing...

How New Jersey is Handling Its Hazardous Wastes
For many years, environmental agencies have paid little attention to how industry manages and disposes of its hazardous wastes. This has been especially true in New Jersey. As a result...

EPA Goes to BAT Against Toxic Industrial Wastewater
Industrial wastewater discharged into municipal sanitary sewers can pass untreated through the treatment plant and into the receiving water. Some industrial wastes can also harm biological...

Regulations: More is Less
Federal regulations have mushroomed since 1969. Agencies to write and enforce regulations have grown as well. Now, say engineers in industry, it is increasingly not economically feasible...

New Use for Filter Fabric: Highway Construction
A growing area of filter fabric use is road construction, both secondary and superhighway. The article focuses on one case history in Cambridge, Maryland where, after a one-year test,...

Stub Girders Cut Steel Use
One innovation in steel building construction, now 10 years old, is the steel stub girder floor framing system. By using a girder that is a composite of steel girder, metal deck and lightweight...

Jacked Pipe Provides Roof for Underground Construction in Busy Urban Area
Construction of a major underground station for the metro in Antwerp, Belgium was done in a busy downtown area employing a method that virtually eliminated ground subsidence. The method...

Winter Roads and Ice Bridges
In order to realize development of the La Grande hydroelectric complex in the James Bay Territory of northern Quebec Province, Canada, the cold weather had to be capitalized on for construction...

 

 

 

 

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