Alternative Procedures for Investigating Failures
Failures of engineered structures continue to occur. This is despite rapid advances in engineering theory, new, more sophisticated methods of analysis, and streamlined techniques for preparing...
Information Availability
There seems to be a great deal of concern about lack of availability of information concerning the results of failure investigations. In most court cases there is virtually no technical...
Failure Information Needs in Civil Engineering
If we are to learn from failures of engineered facilities, failure information must be in a useful form, and it must reach those who can effect improved practice. This paper discusses,...
Learning from Failures
Modern technology and innovation have created a gap between what the design drawings predict with respect to safety and serviceability of a structure and the real safety and serviceability...
Learning from Failures: Procedural Changes in the Design and Construction Process to Reduce Failures
This paper first defines failures and their number and scope in the design and construction fields. It then presents the writer's opinion as to the cause of the failures and...
Failure Investigations in Undergraduate Education
Author stresses the need for failure investigations in undergraduate education especially in Civil Engineering. The civil engineer often creates only one major project of a kind, and is...
Construction Scheduling for Public Sector Projects
The paper presents some types of scheduling systems that are utilized in Postal Service projects as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each. It is suggested that schedule approval...
Simulating Construction Operations by Microcomputer
Field operations on major construction projects involve complex interactions among construction equipment, materials and supplies, skilled craft resources, and technical and administrative...
Type C Fly Ash and Clay Stabilization
Because the soils onsite have a high swell potential, a 37 foot high retaining wall was designed with counterforts and was supported by pier foundations to limestone. In order to reduce...
Building Condition Assessment�An Owner's Perspective
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has recently instituted a program to inspect all of its buildings structures to insure structural integrity and public safety and to provide...
Evaluation and Modernization of Veterans Administration Facilitaties
This paper discusses two examples showing in detail that procedures for building assessment require much consideration for engineers' programming and must be properly specified...
Changing Priorities in UK Construction Research
This paper addresses two types of situations to contend with in building assessment: aging structures all built at about the same time and to standards no longer acceptable, and newer...
Research Needs for Extant Iron and Steel Buildings
A brief review of iron- and steel-making processes is background for the development of shapes and codes. Sources of information for the condition assessment of iron and steel buildings...
Analysis of Cracking of I79 Bridge at Neville Island
A large crack was discovered to form in a girder of the I-79 Glenfield Bridge over the back channel of the Ohio River near Pittsburgh on January 28, 1977. A section of the girder containing...
Structural Integrity Assessment of the Flexible 870 Advanced Design Bus
The Grumman Flxible 870, a lightweight advanced design urban bus, entered service in Atlanta, GA in 1978, and some 2,800 of these buses were in service nationwide by 1980. In the autumn...
Prestress and Cracking Problems in Concrete Structural Components of an Elevated Rail Transit Guideway System
In 1983 the Department of Transportation evaluated the quality of construction of selected structural components on the Dade County Transportation Administration METRORAIL elevated guideways....
Investigation of Catastrophic Failure of a Premium-Alloy Railroad Rail
In November 1983 an Amtrak train derailed at a speed of 72 mph (115 kph) at Woodlawn, Texas (in the vicinity of Marshall, Texas), resulting in four fatalities and twenty-four serious injuries....
Damage Tolerance Assessment of Commercial Airframes
The regulatory authorities now require that commercial transport aircraft structural design be based on a damage tolerance philosophy. A brief history of the development of the regulations...
Tension-Compression Test of a Concrete Specimen Via a Structure Damage Theory
The concrete sample is assumed to consist of a large number of aggregates and cement paste. Their material properties are assumed to be perfectly elastic. The effective elastic property...
Time-Dependent Damage and Creep of Brittle Rock
In this paper, some results of a combined analytical-experimental study of the relationship between subcritical microcrack growth due to stress corrosion and the time-dependent deformation...
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