Tiedback Walls Untie Intersection
The intersection of Gallows Rd. and Arlington Blvd. in Virginia's Fairfax County required separation. Tiedback retaining walls, which required only 18 in. instead of the 18-22...
Glen Canyon Dam's Quick Fix
When the spiullways at Glen Canyon Dam were severely damaged from unexpected flooding in 1983, the Bureau of Reclamation had just 10 months to repair the tunnel spillway lining and build...
Can Your Design Be Built?
A constructibility review takes place in the concept stage, preferably before the project design is completed. The reviewers usually are contractors or project engineers who have a great...
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,...
Scenic Squeeze
Constructing a four-lane dual highway through the 12 miles of Colorado's Glenwood Canyon involves several engineering innovations: cantilevered roadways, unusual retaining...
Turnaround in Houston
Simply implementing the suggestions of the workers building a 14-story garage in Houston, turned a disaster in the making into a project ahead of schedule and under budget. The work force...
Transportation Liability and Risk Management
Risk management programs provide an excellent response to the increased exposure of all transportation agencies to tort liability claims. While some actions and responses require resources...
Tort Liability in the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
During the past decade many have questioned the propriety of the doctrine of sovereign immunity; numerous legal challenges and legislative changes have eroded the doctrine in most states....
Risk Management to Reduce Highway Tort Liability
This paper identifies common risk management techniques and processes. A brief review of tort law is presented along with the specific characteristics of a highway related negligence suit....
Economic Analysis of Highway Safety Projects
The most commonly used economic analysis for highway safety projects is the cost-benefit ratio. While this is a valid analytical tool, it must be used correctly to produce valid results....
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Highway Safety Improvements
The need exists for better information relative to the effectiveness of various safety treatments and actions. Reliable measures of effectiveness are required for determining the most...
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...
Performance of Highway Traffic Barriers
This paper describes an investigation of traffic barrier performance in New York State. A one-year sample of all traffic-barrier accidents in the state was obtained from Department of...
Occupant Risk in Longitudinal Barrier Collisions
The following paper presents data derived from sled test experiments, full-scale vehicle crash tests as well as an in-depth analysis of accident data which suggest that occupants are not...
Rowes Wharf: A Case Study in Substructure Innovation
Rowes Wharf is a project with many unique features. This paper has attempted to briefly review just one of these features - Up/Down construction. The willingness of the development team...
Innovative Solutions to the Challenges of Heavy Civil Projects
Each heavy construction project presents unique conditions and challenges. For large projects, the work scope may justify an extensive engineering analysis and significant investments...
Demands and Means for Construction Innovation
Increasing complexity of the facilities owners need, increasing concern by owners regarding the cost effectiveness of investments in constructed facilities, and growing capability and...
Arbitration: A Risky Method for Resolving Disputes
Arbitration has been widely praised as a speedy, 'inexpensive' alternative to litigation for resolving a wide range of disputes, including disputes arising from...
Construction Insurance: An Alternative Unified Risk Insurance
The transfer of risk mechanism (insurance) can be applied to solve problems unique to the construction environment. The proposed program is worthy of support since all segments of the...
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