Pile Field Support Prefabricated Plants Floated into Place
A unique pile support system, combined with earth dikes and superflooding inside an earth drydock to found floating, prefabricated plant structures on the piles, is estimated to have saved...

America's Covered Bridges
Soon after the Revolutionary War, bridge construction became more important in the United States. Early builders developed by trail and error an economical, permanent, long-span covered...

Computer-Aided Design and Drafting for Small Engineering Firms
As the cost of computer hardware decreases, use of the computer-aided design and drafting is becoming a cost-efficient investment for smaller engineering firms. The article includes four...

West Virginia Cooling Tower Collapse Caused by Premature Form Removal
The collapse of a reinforced concrete cooling tower under construction at Willow Island, W.Va. in April 1978 resulted in 51 fatalities, making it the worst construction accident in American...

Continuing Education in Engineering�What's New?
ASCE's growing program in continuing education is described, plus a view of projected program growth. Two background factors�whether or not more states are likely to follow...

Post-Tensioned Foundations as Economical Alternative
Although post-tensioned (p-t) foundations have been utilized in the U.S. since the early 1960s, the last five years have witnessed a substantial increase in their implementation. Used...

Willow Island Aftermath: The Limits of OSHA
In April 1978 a natural-draft hyperbolic concrete cooling tower under construction at Willow Island, W.Va. collapsed. Fifty-one workers, suspended on a scaffold supported mainly by a layer...

The Concrete Canoe: A Technological Challenge
In 1970 the first concrete canoe was built, and since that time many colleges and universities have built and raced concrete canoes. The Union College (Schenectady, NY) Stone Boat Club...

The Long Road to Regulatory Reform
A brief report on ASCE's actions to encourage the regulatory reform movement in Washington. Included are the resolution as accepted by ASCE's Board of Direction,...

Whither Satellite Remote Sensing�II�
For about six years, NASA SERTS (now called Landsat) satellites have been circling the globe, radioing back digital information on what they see on earth. After being massaged by computer,...

Earth-Filled Slurry Walls Provide Economical Seepage Control
Slurry trench cut-off walls are often used for seepage control after structures requiring excavation are completed, but at a construction site on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway project...

Re-decking a Bridge With Precast Concrete
Re-decking a 1627-ft deck girder bridge on the Pennsylvania Turnpike with precast concrete slabs allowed the bridge to remain partially open to traffice during the entire construction...

How about Reverse Filters
Reverse or inverted filters allow water to drain freely without carrying away suspended solids. Their pore size must be properly related to the fines being protected. Terzaghi's...

Research Needs in Hydraulics, Coastal Engineering and Irrigation
Last June an ASCE/NSF team gathered at Warrenton, Va., to prioritize research needs in civil engineering. They split the field into 10 subcategories, one of which is Hydraulics, Coastal...

The Fly-Over: It Unclogs Urban Traffic in A Hurry
Fly-overs are light-weight, low-cost, prefabricated steel structures that elevate only one or two lanes over a traffic-choked city intersection but dramatically reduce congestion. By removing...

Computerizing Public Works Design
Computers are an easy way to increase engineering design productivity. This is especially important to public works departments who have decreasing budgets and increasing work loads. This...

Baltimore Borrows Bridge Beams
A look at the construction of the Baltimore Convention Center, its four domelike exhibition halls, the main lobby and its service areas. The Center's four columnless exhibit...

Vail Pass Highway�Respecter of Mountain Ecology
Environmental constraints to a large degree controlled both the design and construction of a 14-mi segment of Interstate Highway 70 through Vail Pass in Colorado and necessitated adoption...

Electricity from the Sea
In Hawaii, the state, Lockheed Space and Missile Co. and Dillingham Corp. have conceived, designed and built the first prototype ocean thermal energy conversion plant. OTEC uses the 40�F...

San Antonio Freeway: Social-Impact Landmark
San Antonio's McAllister Freeway, or rather its proposed construction, aroused so much furor as to generate national publicity in the early 1970s. Objections arose because...

 

 

 

 

Return to search