Utilities up and down the East Coast were rapidly making progress on restoring power to the up to 7.5 million homes and businesses that were reported without electricity after Hurricane Irene struck over the weekend.No major damage was reported at East Coast power plants, but Constellation’s Energy’s Calvert Cliffs nuclear Unit #1 remained shut down after a piece of aluminum siding struck a transformer there. All nuclear plants in the path of the storm continued operating or safely shutdown in advance of the storm, according to reports from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Connecticut Light & Power reported having record outages in
In addition to a swooping, stepped concrete and sloped stainless-steel roof-line, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Kansas City, Mo., features a radial glass atrium that hangs on finely tuned steel cables. The privately funded, $413-million job is set to open Sept. 16 after more than a decade of planning, design and construction.Locals
AP Photo/Seth Wenig Construction workers disassemble a temporary building on the beach that was set up for an upcoming surfing competition in Long Beach, N.Y., anticipating Hurricane Irene hitting the East Coast. Related Links: U.S.G.S. Hurricane Irene Tracking Map, Surge Data You could call it the Great Button Up. Or the Big Batten Down.Either way, contractors, owners and government agencies all along the Northeast U.S. coast secured jobsites in anticipation of Hurricane Irene making landfall over the Aug. 27-28 weekend. As of Friday afternoon, Irene was classified as a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph. For some, the
In the aftermath of Tuesday's 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Virginia, building owners in the Washington, D.C., region are accessing potential damage to buildings. Other industry voices are questioning whether the temblor, the largest Virginia has experienced on record, will lead to new discussions of Seismic codes for the East Coast.Several major facilities are closed while teams of engineers inspect structures. Most notably, the National Parks Service closed the Washington Monument indefinitely after teams discovered cracks near the top of the 555-ft-tall obelisk, considered the world's tallest of its kind. Other closed facilities include the National Building Museum, the Dept. of Homeland
Photo courtesy of Albuquerque Public Schools MODEL SCHOOL Barcelona Elementary School is one of several LEED-certified schools in Albuquerque designed under a green code adopted in 2006. Photo by Patrick Coulie Photography MODEL LAB LEED-certification goals were added during design of the N.M. Scientific Laboratories. The Albuquerque Public Schools system may become a testing ground for more than just the 90,000 students it serves. A recent debate within the school board over using the popular green-building rating system, known as LEED, for facility design and construction echoes a heated cost-versus-benefit dispute stemming from New Mexico's recent adoption of new building
Photo by Gustavo J. Parra-Montesinos Orthogonal layouts of shear stud reinforcing at slab-column connections in flat-plate concrete frames do not perform well, says researcher. Photo by Gustavo J. Parra-Montesinos A researcher suggests radial layouts should replace orthogonal layouts of shear stud reinforcing at slab-column connections in flat-plate concrete frames. Related Links: Healthy Doses of Steel Fiber Clear Rebar Congestion Structural designers say there is cause for concern but no reason to panic over research that indicates potential for premature failure of flat-plate concrete frames reinforced at slab-column connections with a popular shear-studs-on-a-rail detail.Engineers estimate that in seismic zones alone there
Buildings Unfinished Chicago Condo Redeveloped as Apartments Capitalizing on new demand for apartment dwellings, Related Midwest, a unit of New York City-based Related Cos., plans to convert an unfinished Chicago condominium into a 65-story, 500-unit luxury apartment building. The Chicago-based developer Teng & Associates originally planned to construct a 90-story condominium-hotel on the site, but the company only completed a 27-story concrete shell before running out of money in 2008. Property records indicate Related Cos. paid $26 million in late July for the structure, which is located on Wacker Drive. Other area developers, including Michael Reschke and Mark Goodman, previously
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s board of directors voted unanimously Thursday to complete construction of the mothballed 1,200-MW Bellefonte nuclear unit 1 over the objections of environmentalists who said that it is unsafe to complete the unit, which has been dormant since 1988.“You’re forcing questionable technology into an old, aging facility,” said John Noel, of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy at the meeting on Thursday. But board members said their concerns had been alleviated after TVA staff and executives assured them the unit would undergo rigorous inspections and have to meet the latest standards and regulations.TVA estimates it will cost
Related Links: Highway Administrator's Frozen Soil and Ground Settlement Update to Board of Directors, Aug. 10, 2011 Big Dig's Technical Maual Section on on Jacked-box Tunneling and Ground Freezing Boston’s Big Dig tunnel has one more problem. Thawing from ground-freezing technology used to excavate the I-90 connector system 11 years ago has apparently caused a large swath of soil to settle. Engineers fear that a deep water-filled void may be lurking beneath.The area of concern beneath the I-90 tunnel base slab measures 190 ft long by 60 ft wide, says Frank DePaola, appointed Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation’s new highway administrator
Related Links: Mayor McGinn Finally Gives In A $2-billion deep-bore tunnel along Seattle’s downtown waterfront appears to have overcome what may be its final obstacle to construction, garnering the approval of nearly 60% of voters in a referendum on whether the city should give the notice to proceed with the project.The tunnel, scheduled for completion in 2015, is the centerpiece of a $3.1-billion Washington State Dept. of Transportation program to replace the seismically suspect double-decked Alaskan Way Viaduct. That thoroughfare carries approximately 110,000 vehicles each day along one of Seattle’s primary north-south arteries. Damage from the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake sparked
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