Learning from Failures
Modern technology and innovation have created a gap between what the design drawings predict with respect to safety and serviceability of a structure and the real safety and serviceability...
Learning from Failures: Procedural Changes in the Design and Construction Process to Reduce Failures
This paper first defines failures and their number and scope in the design and construction fields. It then presents the writer's opinion as to the cause of the failures and...
Failure Investigations in Undergraduate Education
Author stresses the need for failure investigations in undergraduate education especially in Civil Engineering. The civil engineer often creates only one major project of a kind, and is...
Construction Scheduling for Public Sector Projects
The paper presents some types of scheduling systems that are utilized in Postal Service projects as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each. It is suggested that schedule approval...
Simulating Construction Operations by Microcomputer
Field operations on major construction projects involve complex interactions among construction equipment, materials and supplies, skilled craft resources, and technical and administrative...
Avoiding Contractor Disputes During Project Design
The New Jersey Transit Corporation is in the second phase of a billion dollar rebuilding program of its rail system. The first phase, which featured electrification and signal system replacement,...
Evaluation and Modernization of Veterans Administration Facilitaties
This paper discusses two examples showing in detail that procedures for building assessment require much consideration for engineers' programming and must be properly specified...
Research Needs for Extant Iron and Steel Buildings
A brief review of iron- and steel-making processes is background for the development of shapes and codes. Sources of information for the condition assessment of iron and steel buildings...
Analysis of Cracking of I79 Bridge at Neville Island
A large crack was discovered to form in a girder of the I-79 Glenfield Bridge over the back channel of the Ohio River near Pittsburgh on January 28, 1977. A section of the girder containing...
Investigation of Catastrophic Failure of a Premium-Alloy Railroad Rail
In November 1983 an Amtrak train derailed at a speed of 72 mph (115 kph) at Woodlawn, Texas (in the vicinity of Marshall, Texas), resulting in four fatalities and twenty-four serious injuries....
Tension-Compression Test of a Concrete Specimen Via a Structure Damage Theory
The concrete sample is assumed to consist of a large number of aggregates and cement paste. Their material properties are assumed to be perfectly elastic. The effective elastic property...
Time-Dependent Damage and Creep of Brittle Rock
In this paper, some results of a combined analytical-experimental study of the relationship between subcritical microcrack growth due to stress corrosion and the time-dependent deformation...
Continuum Modeling of Discrete Structures with Geometric Nonlinearities
The modeling of geometrically non-linear discrete structures by an equivalent continuum is presented. The discrete-continuum analogy is developed by first isolating a unit cell of the...
Use of Computer Graphics in the Analysis of Large Space Structures
This paper illustrates how interactive computer graphics can provide a useful tool in setting up analytical models of structural latticeworks comprised of large numbers of degrees of freedom...
Damage Detection in Periodic Structures
Nondestructive damage detection in periodic structures using continuum analogues of the discrete structure is studied. Algebraic equations relating changes in eigenfrequencies to the fractional...
Liquefaction Flow Failure of Silty Sand by Torsional Cyclic Tests
The use of undrained strain-controlled cyclic torsional loading of anisotropically consolidated triaxial specimens (CyT-CAU tests), is proposed for evaluating liquefaction flow failure...
Lab Measurements of Gmax Using Bender Elements
This paper describes in detail the installation and use of piezoceramic bender elements in a variety of standard geotechnical laboratory testing equipment at NGI (e. g. , triaxial, direct...
Evaluating Nonlinear Soil Behavior Using the Resonant Column
An analysis is presented that attempts to match a mathematical model to the nonlinear behavior obtained from the resonant column test. This model consists of an oscillator with a restoring...
Uplift Behavior of Shallow Soil Anchors?An Overview
An overview is presented of the static uplift (tensile) behavior of shallow anchors used for foundations in soil. Basic anchor types are described, and their general installation and behavioral...
Uplift Capacity of Helical Anchors in Clay and Silt
The results of a study on the uplift capacity of helical anchors in clay and silt are presented. Full-scale field tests and one-quarter scale laboratory tests were conducted in each soil...
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