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...
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...
Seismic Risk Analysis of LNG Storage Tanks
This paper presents an approach to the seismic safety review of existing LNG storage tanks. The approach considers the seismic hazards from ground motion, surface fault rupture, and soil...
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...
Attaching Steel Members to Reinforced Concrete Elements
A variety of structural systems have been devised to strengthen existing buildings for improved seismic resistance. Strengthening methods currently in use for reinforced concrete structures...
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...
The 1983 Landslide Dam at Thistle, Utah
The Thistle, Utah, landslide began rapid movement on April 13, 1983. The landslide, a reactivation of an estimated 22 multiplied by 10**6 m**3 of old landslide debris, blocked Spanish...
Landslide Damming in the Cordillera of Western Canada
Major landslide dams in the Cordillera are a result of rock slope movements, landslides in stratified Pleistocene deposits, and landslides in till or colluvium in steep mountain watersheds....
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...
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)...
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...
RC Structures Under Severe Loads?An Expert System Approach
The authors propose the application of expert systems to the post-test assessment of specific structural systems. In the study reported, an existing expert system shell was employed and...
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...
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...
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...
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