Isn't a Subway for Washington, D.C., Just the Thing�
After 100 years of dreaming and 10 years of design and construction, more than 22 miles and 28 stations of the Washington, D.C., Metro are now in revenue operation. When completed in 1983,...
Los Angeles Reservoir is Safe From Earthquakes
The Los Angeles Reservoir was nominated for the 1978 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award. The reservoir, which replaces the Van Norman Reservoir damaged during the 1971 San...
Stadium Seats Slide on Water
In Denver, a unique 21,000 seat, 9-million pound movable stand is used to convert the Denver Mile High Stadium from baseball to football or soccer. The stands are lifted and move on 163-forty...
Land Treatment: An Alternative Technology for Wastewater Management
The 1977 Clean Water Act provides some strong incentives for increasing the use of less costly, less energy intensive technology for municipal wastewater treatment facilities. Specifically,...
Reef Runway is First in Airport Design
The Reef Runway Project of Honolulu International Airport constructed on a coral reef, provides approximately 765 acres of new land for the 12,000-ft-long runway with its associated taxiways...
Small Midwestern Consultant Introduces Inhouse Desk Top Computer
This article traces the history of engineering and surveying calculations in a small civil-geotechnical consulting office in Rock Island, Ill., W.J. Reese & Associates. The expanding...
Cofferdams�Economical Flood Protection
Houston Lighting and Power Co. Sam Bertron Generating Station, located on the Houston Ship Channel, had suffered a drop in elevation of 7.5 ft since its construction in 1954. At such a...
Dredge-and-Fill Saves $2 Million at Steel Mill Built in Swamp
The Georgetown Texas Steel Corp., in late 1973, accepted the challenge of developing a previously cleared cypress swamp on the east side of the Neches River across from Beaumont, Texas....
Reliability and Limit States Approaches to Design
Increasingly, designers of structures and other civil engineering projects will be designing in these ways. What is the reliability approach? It is based in part on the fact that the magnitude...
Chevrolet Raises the Roof
Chevrolet's Gear and Axle plants in Detroit needed more space so a decision to renovate the 60-yr old structures rather than relocate the operation was made. New roof structures...
Prefab Structural Components Solve Expansion Problem
Another story was added onto an existing low-rise building, where soil strength was so low that the new floor had to be built by sinking new columns down to a sounder stratum, placing...
Reservoir Outlet Extended Above Silt to Prevent Clogging
Accumulation of silt in an on-stream water storage reservoir almost completely buried the concrete tower originally provided as an outlet intake shaft for releasing stored water through...
Aerated-Pile Composting: A Promising New Alternative for Sewage Sludge Disposal
In the past several years, traditional methods of sludge disposal such as incineration and ocean dumping have come under fire from environmental groups and the EPA. This has sparked a...
Drexel Students Build Space Frame as Senior Project
Drexel University's geodesic tri-span is an open-air monumental structure conceived, designed, fabricated and constructed by a group of senior civil engineering students to...
Germany, Belgium and Los Angeles have Mandatory Design Review for Major Structures
The report of the engineering investigation into the causes of the collapse of the Hartford Coliseum space truss cited design deficiencies as the cause of failure. That report also says...
Subway Designs and Construction Methods That Cut Costs
The high cost of subway construction in the United States can be reduced by adopting station and track structure configurations, structural systems, and construction techniques best suited...
Gophers Go Underground
A major facility, Williamson Hall, was constructed to be almost entirely below grade on the East Bank Campus of the University of Minnesota. Heating and cooling energy requirements will...
Modern Concrete Structures Survive Romanian Earthquake
On March 4, 1977, 35 buildings collapsed during a severe earthquake (7.2 on the Richter scale) in Bucharest, Romania. Thirty-two of the 35 were older structures, erected before World War...
Reliable Structural Weldments for Critical Service
Fracture control plans are considered in light of weldment rather than base material alone. Data are presented on the probability of base materials (i.e., plate) having adequate toughness...
Expansive Soils�Geotechnical Problems Are in Hand; Now Need to Familiarize Nonengineers
Expansive soils damage thousands of buildings, many miles of highway each year. How and why these types of clays expand is explained. How geotechnical engineers in Colorado, Texas and...
Return to search