Visualizing the Flow
Digital modeling of passive cooling techniques now enables engineers to create comfortable environments in even the most unlikely of spaces�including glass atriums in the desert. Passive...
Success or Failure: A Tale of Two Projects
Twenty city blocks and a ten year period separated two projects of similar purposes, but with completely different endings. The first one, the Delancey Street Project, took place in 1984...
19 Tough Acts to Follow
The nominations for this year's Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award included everything from runway extensions to highway extensions, water fun parks to water...
Scour Power
New prediction methods consistently calculate scour around bridge piers allowing engineers to better tailor pier design in rock and consolidated material. The leading cause of bridge failure...
Building a Landfill on Mud(Available only in Geo/Environmental Special Issue)
In the early 1980s, officials at the Delaware Solid Waste Authority (DSWA) thought they had found the ideal site for a new municipal landfill: low acquisition cost, direct access from...
Pipeline Crossings 1996
This proceedings,
Evaluation Findings
the Segmental Concrete Channel Bridge System
Prepared by the Highway Innovative Technology Evaluation Center, a CERF Service Center. This report presents the findings of a HITEC evaluation of...
An Irresistible Offer
An unusual case of public-private financing of part of a Florida beltway is described, in which developers along an unfinished section of the road paid for preliminary design that provided...
Rebound of the Bascule Bridge
A patented bascule bridge in Sheboygan, Wis. demonstrates design innovations that reduce the cost of bascule construction and minimize maintenance problems. The new $7.5 million South...
Chicago's Micropile Debut
On a tight, urban site around Chicago's historic Orchestra Hall, engineers used high-capacity micropiles as an alternative to hand-dug caissons. On a $104 million project...
Designs for Blast Protection (Available only in
The 1995 bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City was the most deadly terrorist act in this country's history. What can engineers do to prevent such events in the future?...
All-Around Arenas (Available only in
Structural form and architectural function go hand-in-hand in the design of today's modern multipurpose arenas. The 19th century architect, Louis H. Sullivan, coined the phrase...
Seismic Design Doubles Lateral Resistance (Available only in
A veterans hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. had to be built under severe design constraints. The seismic code for hospitals is among the most stringent of codes and this facility was sited...
Honolulu's Street Relief
Engineers faced the daunting prospect of burying a new relief sewer under a busy Honolulu highway with trench-cut methods. The contractor suggested microtunneling, but the coral reef formations...
Engineering Ethics
Recent revelations about the 1978 emergency retrofit of the Citicorp Center in New York City sparked an assessment of ethical dilemmas by the structural engineering community. In May 1995,...
Balancing on the Tides
Using a system of pivoting, barge-mounted towers, a Virginia contractor floated bridge segments into position 120 ft above the York River, reducing costs and cutting erection time by nearly...
A Landslide of Litigation
Recently in Dana Point, Calif. a hillside road-widening project turned into a mountain of litigation when crews unknowingly cut open the slope toe downhill of residences. Design consultants...
Bare Bones Buildings
A new approach to fire engineering opens possibilities of designing buildings in which the structural skeleton is part of the architectural statement. Fire and corrosion requirements used...
Pyramid Power
The pyramids of Giza in Egypt were built with limestone from nearby quarries, not concrete as some have theorized. The three main pyramids of Giza mark a highpoint of pyramid building...
Singapore Showcase
A new bridge in Singapore has a unique pylon design and no piers. The deck hangs from the pylon supported by three back stays. The 100 m overpass bridge was designed for the Singapore...
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