Liquid Fuel Systems
This section provides an overview of liquid fuel systems, including major system components. Also discussed are dependencies of liquid fuel systems on other lifelines and vice versa....
Power-Generating Dams: Lifelines
This section provides an overview of power generating dams, including major components and subsystems. Also present are general post-earthquake investigation procedures for dams....
Hospitals
This section provides an overview of hospitals, their major components, and typical hospital lifelines. Also present is a guide for performing a post-earthquake investigation of hospitals....
Evaluating Earthquake Hazards
Earthquake hazards vary considerably in different parts of the country. The effect of an earthquake on telecommunication systems is influenced by the magnitude of the earthquake, the proximity...
Central Office
A Central Office (CO) is where calls are processed. In the complex hierarchy of the PSN, there are many other facilities to which this definition applies; they are Digital Loop Carrier...
Outside Plant
Outside Plant can be defined as equipment and facilities connecting a CO to other COs, and connecting a CO to subscribers. Depending on the distance and the terrain involved, the methods...
Wireless System
The technology of using radio frequencies to communicate is not new. Ham radio and walkie talkies were the first form of radio communication used by the public; then the Citizen Band (CB)...
Assessing Opal's Impact
Geographic information systems and other high-technology tools were used to quantify the effects of Hurricane Opal in October 1995. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, along with...
Communication Breakdown
Are modern telecommunications networks vulnerable to earthquakes? Researchers say yes, and have developed a computer tool to quantify potential economic impacts. Telecommunications service...
Project Object
Modeling and managing water systems is a notoriously difficult task, one made simpler by PRSYM, a new object-oriented software package created by a consortium of public utilities, government...
Water Wisdom of the Ancients
Two water systems thousands of years old--the falaj system in Oman and China's Dujiangyan water works--are still in use today. A climatologist describes how these systems...
Structural Aerodynamics (Available only in
One of the most strikingly ambitious public buildings in France, county governmental headquarters in Marseille, achieves the status of world-class architecture largely through its structural...
Small Firms, Big Challenges
Does it pay to be small? Though many small engineering firms find strength in their size, others are hampered by limited resources and a specialization that diminishes their client base....
A Gatehouse for Johnson
Philip Johnson's latest addition to his eclectic collection of architectural designs on his Connecticut property is a radical departure from his famed Glass House. Builders...
Rock `N' Roll in Cleveland
A glass tent, a cylinder perched on a single column, a collection of squares, rectangles, triangles and circles were amassed in and around a 167 ft tall tower by architect I.M. Pei to...
Translucent Structural Beacon
In East Los Angeles some 2,000 children, teens and adults are accessing their future inside a building that is as high-tech as the computers they are using to learn. The 40,000 sq ft building...
Spotlight on Steel Moment Frames
Engineers' confidence in moment connections was shattered when damage was discovered after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Such connections are now a hot subject for U.S....
Perfecting Bridge Inspecting
The Massachusetts Highway Department has improved the safety of its bridges and increased its productivity by using networked multimedia to gather and store a variety of data about bridges...
Accessing Atlantic City
Construction of the 2.2 million sq ft Atlantic City Convention Center is well under way. With 486,000 sq ft of exhibition space, the center and accompanying rail terminal could help restore...
Fracturing for In-situ Bioremediation (Available only in
A pilot-scale evaluation of an integrated pneumatic fracturing and bioremediation system demonstrated the enhanced removal of BTX from a gasoline-contaminated, low-permeability soil formation....
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