Building Failures�Preventing Them, Learning from Them
Ways to design and construct a structure so as to minimize chances of errors leading to failure are described. Held up as models of systematically investigating failures are the incident-study...

Cofferdams Protecting New York Bridges from Ship Collisions
During the past few decades, there have been a number of cases where ships have rammed bridge piers, triggering the superstructure's collapse. The most tragic case was the...

Failure of the Breakwater at Port Sines, Portugal
The objectives of the Port Sines Investigation Panel were to collect perishable data on and to identify causes of the failure on February 26, 1978, of the rubble mound breakwater at Port...

Application of Plasticity and Generalized Stress-strain in Geotechnical Engineering
This volume on the application of plasticity and generalized stress-strain in geotechnical engineering is divided into two main sections, with an introduction on soil constitutive model...

Engineering and Construction in Tropical and Residual Soils
Thirty-one papers and six invited lectures presented at the specialty conference on engineering and construction in tropical and residual soils are included. The proceedings represent...

An Improved Design for Grain Storage Tanks Solves Problem of Brittle Failures
The welded tank features fracture-tough steel and tube stiffeners to overcome problems evident in several failures of major tanks in recent years. Used extensively for grain storage in...

Behind the Sines, Protugal Breakwater Failure
This article highlights a report on the possible causes of failure of the massive, $178 million breakwater at Sines, Portugal. This was the largest breakwater of its kind in the world....

Causes and Preventions of Lamellar Tearing: Engineer's Notebook
Within the past 10 years, a steel cracking problem, lamellar tearing, has arisen after welding of thicker sections and higher-strength steels. A separation underlying a weld joining plate...

Trouble Shooting ChemicaLly Resistant Masonry
This paper is a series of case histories showing specifically how lack of understanding of the nature of the materials and their proper uses has caused failure in design, specification,...

Olmos Dam Modifications
(1981 OCEA Nominee.) The 55-year-old Olmos Dam, five and one-half miles northeast of San Antonio, Texas, required major modifications to avoid...

Structural Safety
Future building codes will go far beyond the classical emphasis on dimensioning, calculations, and specification writing. Emphasis will shift from scientific thinking to strategic thinking,...

Some Proposals for Reducing Structural Failures
Illinois is one of the few states requiring a Structural Engineer's License: a P.E. alone is not enough to practice structural engineering there. Unfortunately, even in Illinois,...

State-of-the-Art Report on Finite Element Analysis of Reinforced Concrete
This comprehensive state-of-the-art report contains a summary of the special features of finite element analysis applied to reinforced concrete, including: constitutive relationships,...

Engineers Notebook: Checking Capacities of Eccentrically Loaded Columns on an Existing Bridge
This article focuses on the structural analysis of eccentrically loaded columns. A simple and novel graphical technique for determining the load-carrying capacity of the columns is presented....

Replacing Corroded Cables on a Cable-Stayed Bridge
The cable-stayed bridge across Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo is among the longest bridges of its type. But after years of service, corroded cables threatened to snap, which would...

Evaluation, Maintenance and Upgrading of Wood Structures
Prepared by the Subcommittee on Evaluation, Maintenance, and Upgrading of Timber Structures of the Committee on Wood of the Structural Division of ASCE. ...

Slope Stability Program
This article includes an entire computer program, written in BASIC computer language. The program is a simplified version of programs which have been written for large computer systems....

Protecting Post-Tensioning Tendons in Concrete Structures
Patterns of corrosion problems related to tendon systems are analyzed based on the author's experience in evaluating over 50 corrosion related performance problems in prestressed...

Computing in Civil Engineering
Ninety-five of the papers submitted for presentation at the first International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering (1981) are presented. The papers are organized into 22 areas:...

Recent Development in Geotechnical Engineering for Hydro Projects
Eleven of the papers presented at three sessions of the ASCE Geotechnical Engineering Division at the 1981 International Convention are included. The papers are divided into two subjects:...

 

 

 

 

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