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...
Small Water Users�Planning Crisis
Planning to rehabilitate small water systems�both irrigation and municipal water supply�often is ignored. In contrast, planning for new construction and for operations/maintenance work...
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....
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...
Liquefaction Flow Failure of Silty Sand by Torsional Cyclic Tests
The use of undrained strain-controlled cyclic torsional loading of anisotropically consolidated triaxial specimens (CyT-CAU tests), is proposed for evaluating liquefaction flow failure...
Structural Vibrations Associated with Large Incubation Tanks
It is the purpose of this paper to describe the format of an investigation wherein the train of evidence led from an assumption of a strictly mechanical cause to an actual cause that was...
Advances in High Strength Concrete,
The technology for producing field placeable concrete with a 28 day compressive strength of 10,000 psi has been available for many years. With the recent use of microsilica as an additive...
Aseismic Capability Prediction from Failure Data
Forensic engineering evaluations of failures have produced a wealth of technical data. In this paper, evaluation of representative failure data from one practitioner provided relevant...
New Analysis Techniques for Structural Masonry
These seven papers on analysis of structural masonry that constitute this Proceedings were presented at a technical session at the ASCE Structural Engineering Congress held at Hyatt Regency...
Reducing Failures of Engineered Facilities
One of the most serious problems of modern professional practice is the collapse or malfunction of an engineered facility. The tragic consequences of this problem are all too familiar...
Fracture Problems in the Transportation Industry
Six cases of damage tolerance assessment are presented, involving structures or vehicles in the U.S. transportation industry. Damage tolerance means arranging design, maintenance, and...
Seismic Experience Data?Nuclear and Other Plants
The Seismic Qualification Utilities Group (SQUG) was formed to explore the use of earthquake experience data of equipment performance to resolve Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) initiated...
Predicting Sinkhole Collapse
Sinkholes erupt when a cavern or opening in the limestone rock below opens up to the surface. Florida's sinkholes have received most U.S. attention recently, but sinkhole geology is found...
Establishing Patterns of Building Failures
Establishing statistical patterns of building failures can help engineers and architects prevent similar failures in the future and also reduce litigation. The Architecture and Engineering...
1986: The Year of the Connection
It is proposed that 1986 be designated the Year of the Connection and that the American Society of Civil Engineers take a leading role in overcoming problems now associated with structural...
Application of Methods of Probabilistic Characterization of Soil Properties
The use of probabilistic methods to describe soil properties has many applications. One such application that has been developed is in the area of probabilistic slope stability analysis....
Building Failures�Construction Related Problems and Solutions
A leadership group of representatives from the fields of structural design, construction, building inspection, the law and insurance agreed that if five changes are made in the way building...
The Case of the Bungled Bridge Rehab
Foundation failures and rehabilitations concern the owner, the engineer and the contractor. These parties face liability to one another as well as to third parties. There are contractual...
Building Failures: Design Problems and Solutions
A Building Failures conference of the Engineering Foundation dissected the problems leading to failures and recommended ways to reduce failures. This article discusses value engineering,...
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