Arbitration: A Risky Method for Resolving Disputes
Arbitration has been widely praised as a speedy, 'inexpensive' alternative to litigation for resolving a wide range of disputes, including disputes arising from...
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...
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...
Sampling and Testing in Stiff Crustal Clays
In desiccated clays, the secondary structure consisting of fissures and slickensides greatly influence the measurement of soil strength. In a sampling study, such soils were found to be...
Mechanics of Crack Propagation in Stiff Clays
Many stiff clays forming part of natural slopes and earth dams exist in the fissured state. When these cracks are subjected to gravity induced normal and shear stresses they may propagate....
Shear Mobilization on Laterally Loaded Shafts
From the results of a pressure cell instrumented rigid shaft embedded in stiff clay and subjected to horizontal static loading the side shear mobilization rate, and its contribution to...
Excavation in Hard Clays of the Keuper Formation
For the construction of a lock on the Main-Danube-Canal in South Germany a 30 m deep cut had to be excavated in the overconsolidated clays and claystones of the Keuper formation. The strength...
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...
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...
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 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...
An Expert System for Construction Schedule Analysis
This paper describes a prototypical expert system for the analysis and evaluation of construction scheduling networks from an owners' perspective. The knowledge base, which...
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...
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...
Integration of Project & Business Planning
An annual business plan is an important document. The process of developing a long term strategy and the concrete action plan necessary for its implementation involves management analysis...
Training Programs for Engineering Consulting Firms
Engineering consulting firms heavily use and support in-house training programs. The objectives of these training programs are to: (1) supplement the graduate engineer's educational...
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