What to Do When a Failure Occurs
When a major building problem involving structural failure occurs, action should begin immediately to determine the damage or failure and detect the underlying problem. This paper will...
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...
An Historical Perspective of Failures of Civil Engineering Works
The blight of failures has smitten civil engineering works since ancient times. An examination of historic cases reveals relationships to contemporary cases that are useful in guiding...
Failure Classifications
A detailed description of the failure classification with respect to the constructed facilities is presented. Author is of the opinion that most reports of failure even of an extensive...
Data Collection and Information Dissemination: Current Efforts and Challenges
The need for the civil engineering community to collect and disseminate information on failures has been discussed widely. It appears that in recent years our profession's reluctance to...
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...
A Perspective on Landslide Dams
The most common types of mass movements that form landslide dams are rock and soil slumps and slides; mud, debris, and earth flows: and rock and debris avalanches. The most common initiation...
Landslide Damming in the Cordillera of Western Canada
Major landslide dams in the Cordillera are a result of rock slope movements, landslides in stratified Pleistocene deposits, and landslides in till or colluvium in steep mountain watersheds....
Landslide Dams in South-Central China
The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers and their tributaries drain mountainous areas of south-central China that are highly susceptible to landslide activity. This paper describes six major cases...
Fault Diagnosis of Hazardous Waste Incineration Facilities Using a Fuzzy Expert System
The use of an expert system along with fuzzy fault tree analysis is discussed in connection with fault diagnosis of a hazardous waste incineration facility. This fault tree is a diagrammatic...
Precast Roofs for Blast Shelters
A shallow-buried reinforced concrete blast shelter has been constructed and dynamically tested at the U. S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (WES). Three thicknesses of precast...
Building Records from 1984 Morgan Hill Earthquake
The dynamic response of 23 structures instrumented by the California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program was recorded during the magnitude 6. 2 (ML) Morgan Hill earthquake of 24 April...
Performance of an Earthquake Excited Roof Diaphragm
The objective of this paper is to study the earthquake performance of the roof diaphragm of the West Valley College gymnasium in Saratoga, California through a complete set of acceleration...
Monitoring a Bridge's Pulse
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which collapsed in 1980, is being replaced by the Florida Department of Transportation. The new Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which spans Tampa Bay between Bradenton...
Roof Membranes: New Systems, New Problems
Market trends in roof membranes are described; most important is the use of single-ply membranes of rubber or plastic in the past decade. A swing to modified bitumen membranes is predicted...
Expansion of the Electro-Coal Transfer Terminal
This paper briefly describes renovation and expansion of the coal and phosphate marine terminal in Davant, La. The program included: replacement of existing berths damaged by marine accident;...
Forensic Engineering
Learning from Failures
The activities and qualifications of the Forensic Engineer are summarized in the nine papers published in this book. Procedures for failure investigation are discussed along with failure...
Landslide Dams
Processes, Risk, and Mitigation
Landslide dams have proved to be both interesting natural phenomena and significant hazards in many areas of the world. A few of these blockages attain heights and volumes that rival or...
Borehole Shear Test and Slope Stability
Three Iowa landslides analyzed on the basis of Borehole Shear Test (BST) data are reported. The soils included CL and ML loess and glacial till, and CH clay shale. Back-calculations from...
Hydrodynamics of Earth Fill Dam Breach Erosion
An analytical model is suggested in this paper. The model is based on the continuity equation of water mass within the reservoir, a broad-crested weir discharge formula and a velocity...
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