Seismic Structural Optimization and Computer Programs
A generic system has been developed for the geometric design of highway retaining walls. Merging the three-dimensional coordinate geometry capabilities of the roadway design system (RDS)...
Analysis and Optimum Design of Nondeterministic Structures under Random Loads
The importance of analyzing and designing structural systems by using a reliability-based approach is emphasized, including system safety requirements with regard to both serviceability...
Structural Design Optimization of Nonlinear Response With Adina
Procedures for sensitivity analysis and optimization of nonlinear structural systems with the computer program ADINA are described. Formulation of the structural optimization problem and...
Animated Response of Dynamic Systems
Understanding how a simple structural system responds to a dynamically applied load is a difficult concept for most students to grasp. The fundamental mathematical theory of this behavior...
The Software Implications of Supercomputer Architecture
A simple look at computer architecture from a computational (and hence user) perspective is observed. A relation between computer architecture and software development is explored. Today's...
Attached Scientific Computers in Structural Analysis
The design and analysis process is explored in terms of its requirements for user decision-making and interaction. This is presented as a three-phase procedure: (1) the engineer developing...
Reflections on the Impact of Computer Science on Engineering
Over the past several decades, the use of computers in engineering has grown significantly. Over this same time period, work in the relatively new discipline of Computer Science has impacted...
Water and Wastewater, Time to Automate?
Water and wastewater engineers have been slow to adopt a full circle systems approach to automated monitoring and control. Such a technical tactic for controlling water and wastewater...
Construction Company Builds a Computer System
The case history of the computerization of a construction company is presented. The report reviews the stages that the company went through from manual operations for bookkeeping, estimating,...
Evaluation of Safety Alternatives by Benefit/Cost Analysis
There is an increasing awareness of the need to use limited highway safety funds on projects that offer the greatest benefits. This paper describes the development and application of a...
Selection of Performance Levels for Longitudinal Barriers
There is a demand within the highway community for multi-service level safety features, including traffic barriers. The need has become more acute in recent years as revenues decline and...
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...
Systems Model for Water Supply Following Earthquakes
The water supply for San Francisco is described with emphasis on the city's auxiliary water distribution network, which provides fire protection for the most heavily built-up...
Landslide Dammed Lakes at Mount St. Helens, Washington
The collapse of the north face of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, and the debris avalanche that resulted blocked outflow from Spirit Lake and Coldwater and South Fork Castle Creeks....
Engineering Implications of Impoundment of the Indus River by an Earthquake-Induced Landslide
Historical records and physical evidence indicate that in the Himalayas of northern Pakistan a huge landslide dam was caused by an earthquake in 1840. The dam blocked the Indus River,...
Landslide Dams in Japan
Damming of rivers by landslides is common in Japan because widespread unstable slopes and narrow valleys exist in conjunction with frequent hydrologic, volcanic, and seismic landslide...
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...
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