Five Millions Square Foot Tent Roof
Saudi Arabia will soon be the site of the world's biggest roof. Consisting of a seris of modules, each overing 10.5 acres, the roof is made of tentlike fabric squares supported...
Largest Inverted Shell Houses Two Theaters
A meeting center in Albany, New York, has such a complex shape that it took months just to design its surface mathematically. Perched on a pedestal, it is nearly elliptical in plan. From...
Jacked Pipe Provides Roof for Underground Construction in Busy Urban Area
Construction of a major underground station for the metro in Antwerp, Belgium was done in a busy downtown area employing a method that virtually eliminated ground subsidence. The method...
Winter Roof Collapses: Bad Luck or Bad Design�
An overview of the collapses in 1978 and 1979 in Chicago and in the Northeast shows that, in most instances, the design codes are adequate. Designers, however, have not paid sufficient...
Current Trends in Design and Construction of Embankment Dams
This report is concerned primarily with the embankment itself although foundation and abutment treatment are considered essential elements of the embankment. It covers a broad range of...
Guide to Investigation of Structural Failures
This guide contains a broad range of instructions and suggestions regarding structural failures. Topics include failure causes by project type, failure causes by structural type, failure...
Behavioral Factors in Selection of Technologies
Where a well-known technology is provided to a population that has long been acquainted with its use, the problems of predicting patterns of social behavior are relatively simple. The...
$70 Million for Dam Inspection
In 1972, Congress passed the National Dam Inspection Act, requiring the U.S. Corps of Engineers to inspect and inventory all dams in the United States; but few dams were inspected. Then...
Major Cause of Earthquake Damage is Ground Failure
Ground failure is one of the most destructive effects of large earthquakes. For example, about 60% of the damage during the 1964 Alaska earthquake was a consequence of ground failure....
What's New in Roofing�
For 75 years the waterproof membranes in roofs were made the same way�layers of bitumen alternating with layers of felt. Now for the first time prefabricated membranes of synthetics are...
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...
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...
Vibroreplacement and Reinforced Earth Unite to Strengthen a Weak Foundation
Two relatively new engineering concepts in the U.S. were successfully used to solve a difficult soils problem. A highway skirting Idaho's Lake Pend Oreille was built on a...
King Post Truss System Cuts Roof Framing Cost by 30%
The design was based on requirements for minimally obstructed sight lines (Robin Hood Dell Open-Air Theater, Philadelphia, Pa.) for outdoor seating and a tight construction budget of $4,500,000....
The Field Engineer: Political and Legal Scapegoat�
The publicly-employed engineer can be in a vulnerable legal position. A case history is described in which a field engineer was indicted on criminal charges after a bridge collapse (during...
Fabric Roofs Feel the Pressure
Plastic-coated fabric roofs have been growing in popularity with uses ranging from covering a football stadium in Michigan to housing satellite-tracking stations. Article takes a look...
Teton Dam Failure
In June 1976, Teton Dam in Idaho failed. It was an earthfill dam 305 ft high. It failed by piping through the impermeable core of the dam. Among factors believed contributing to failure:...
Why Do Bridges Fail�
From the study of 143 bridge failures that occurred throughout the world from 1847 to 1975, it is found that there are nine categories of failure. The most frequent of these is failure...
The Evaluation of Dam Safety
Proceedings of the Engineering Foundation Conference on the Evaluation of Dam Safety, held in the Asilomar Conference Grounds, Pacific Grove, California, November 28 December 3, 1976....
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