Putting a Lid on Liability
In the face of the recent landslide of claims and litigation, limiting your firm's liability sounds impossible. But there are ways to protect yourself, from selling quality,...
Ten Top Projects for 1988
The other Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement nominees make up an impressive collection of projects. They are notable for innovative management techniques, state-of-the-art engineering...
Conflicts: The Common Denominator of Health/Safety Programs
Constraints on time and resources influences the public sector as strongly as our personal lives. Experience teaches us that our desires must be tempered with hard realities. Finite resources...
Comparing Benefits of Safety and Non-Safety Programs
The objective of this presentation is to compare benefit-cost ratios for major highway construction projects to those for highway safety projects, such as: (1) new highways, (2) major...
How Uncle Sam Values Mortality Risk Reductions
This paper reviews the policies, methods and 'value-of-statistical-life' (VSL) estimates used by several federal agencies to assess the economic efficiency of...
Benefit-Cost Analysis: Past and Future Directions
As implemented at the State level, highway resource allocation models fail to consider the travel time delay and crashes that result from construction. They use the economic costs of crashes...
Highway Safety; Moving from Fantasy to Reality
An assessment of the effects of highway safety program on the reduction of traffic accidents is made. The annual traffic death rate is currently 47,900. The paper discusses whether present...
A Case for Science-Based Road Safety Design and Management
What civil engineers do has a major effect on road safety. However, contrary to appearances, the level of safety built into roads is largely unpremeditated. Standards and practices have...
Seismic Risk to Natural Gas and Oil Systems
This paper begins with a brief summary of significant earthquake damage to gas and oil lifeline systems during several earthquakes. Following this discussion, the objectives and major...
Seismic Reliability of Hierarchical Lifeline Systems
The problem to be considered here is the vulnerability and reliability of a functionally as well as physically hierarchical lifeline system. Most major lifeline systems have this feature;...
Elegant Interchange for Tight Urban Spaces
The Seventh St. underpass, which opened in May of 1987, is a multilevel uban interchange crossing I-10 in the center of Phoenix, Arizona. With little right of way available, the interchange...
The Role of Social and Behavioral Sciences in Water Resources Planning and Management
This volume contains the proceedings of the conference on The Role of the Social and Behavioral Sciences in Water Resources Planning and Management. The topics addressed include obstacles...
Garbage Management in Japan: Leading the Way
Excerpts from a book that details how land-poor Japan has less garbage problems than the land rich United States. Chapter Six, Incineration, is excerpted. In Japan, incineration is regarded...
Soil Nailing Debate
Are U.S. contractors and engineers using the best models for designing soil nailing projects? Here in the U.S., the method has attracted the interest of contractors, engineers, research...
New Found Youth for an Old Foundry
The Grey Iron plant, central foundry division of General Motors Corp., in Saginaw, Mich. conducted a study to evaluate the capacity and tooling of future casting operations of the more...
Driving in the Fast Track
Fast track concrete allows traffic back on pavement within 24 hours. Fast track concrete has been developing in Iowa for the last three years. Traffic rerouting, an inconvenience that...
Prison Construction by Committee
Prisons are providing tremendous engineering, construction and management opportunities. Many states are under court order to upgrade their correctional systems. The tremendous volume...
Construction's Critical Condition
The United States construction industry is experiencing a decline due mainly to the drop in productivity. Even though tools have improved and labor costs have remained in relative parity,...
New Clarifiers Help Save History
By using clarifiers to upgrade a waste treatment plant, Camp Dresser & McKee were able to utilize the available space so that an historic building existing within the plant could...
Reviewing Peer Review
As interest in project peer reviews grows, some fundamental questions remain. What, for example, constitutes an independent peer review? Who is your peer and how is peer defined? Who pays...
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