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Roof Design: Avoid Ponding by Sloping to Drain
Roofing contractors recommend that roofs possess enough slope to permit complete drainage within 48 hours of rainfall. Otherwise ponds will form which can cause leakage and even contribute...

Computer-Aided Design and Drafting for Small Engineering Firms
As the cost of computer hardware decreases, use of the computer-aided design and drafting is becoming a cost-efficient investment for smaller engineering firms. The article includes four...

West Virginia Cooling Tower Collapse Caused by Premature Form Removal
The collapse of a reinforced concrete cooling tower under construction at Willow Island, W.Va. in April 1978 resulted in 51 fatalities, making it the worst construction accident in American...

Continuing Education in Engineering�What's New?
ASCE's growing program in continuing education is described, plus a view of projected program growth. Two background factors�whether or not more states are likely to follow...

Hartford Coliseum Roof Collapse: Structural Collapse Sequence and Lessons Learned
As with all structural failures, the collapse of the Hartford Civic Center Coliseum roof has raised many questions about design and analysis procedures. The profession should learn from...

Whither Satellite Remote Sensing�II�
For about six years, NASA SERTS (now called Landsat) satellites have been circling the globe, radioing back digital information on what they see on earth. After being massaged by computer,...

Earth-Filled Slurry Walls Provide Economical Seepage Control
Slurry trench cut-off walls are often used for seepage control after structures requiring excavation are completed, but at a construction site on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway project...

How about Reverse Filters
Reverse or inverted filters allow water to drain freely without carrying away suspended solids. Their pore size must be properly related to the fines being protected. Terzaghi's...

Research Needs in Hydraulics, Coastal Engineering and Irrigation
Last June an ASCE/NSF team gathered at Warrenton, Va., to prioritize research needs in civil engineering. They split the field into 10 subcategories, one of which is Hydraulics, Coastal...

Basics in Failure Analysis of Large Structures
Failure analysis procedures can usually determine the most probalbe cause of a structural failure. Then it is possible to determine why the initial design, materials selection, and fabrication...

The Fly-Over: It Unclogs Urban Traffic in A Hurry
Fly-overs are light-weight, low-cost, prefabricated steel structures that elevate only one or two lanes over a traffic-choked city intersection but dramatically reduce congestion. By removing...

Computerizing Public Works Design
Computers are an easy way to increase engineering design productivity. This is especially important to public works departments who have decreasing budgets and increasing work loads. This...

Space Shuttle
In modifying the decade-old Apollo man-to-the-moon launch facilities at Cape Kennedy, FL, for the forthcoming Space Shuttle mission NASA and contractors made two major innovations: To...

Vail Pass Highway�Respecter of Mountain Ecology
Environmental constraints to a large degree controlled both the design and construction of a 14-mi segment of Interstate Highway 70 through Vail Pass in Colorado and necessitated adoption...

Electricity from the Sea
In Hawaii, the state, Lockheed Space and Missile Co. and Dillingham Corp. have conceived, designed and built the first prototype ocean thermal energy conversion plant. OTEC uses the 40�F...

New Telescope has Innovative Structural Design
The new optical telescope at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, is the third largest in the world, but one of the most economical to build. The savings is the result of using 6 lightweight, small mirrors...

TVA's Pumped Storage Plant
TVA's Raccoon Mountain Plant is one of the U.S.'s largest with generating capacity of 1530 MW for 20 hours. The project, nominated for a 1980 OCEA, consists of...

Notched Trusses Give Low-Cost Conversion of Hangars for Jumbo Jets
Physically notching the structural members in a hangar roof solved the problem of moving new DC-10 aircraft into and out of maintenance hangars built for smaller, earlier-generation commercial...

Don't Always Put Dam in Narrowest Part of Valley
Hydraulic factors must be taken into account in dam planning and design, because the best structural design is not always the most economical. When the potential for downstream flood damage...

Part Two: Basics in Failure Analysis of Large Structures
Part two of a article, with part one appearing in May, 1980. Part two begins with microscopic examination which includes the use of scanning and transmission electron microscopes. Covers...

 

 

 

 

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