London's high-rise architecture has a culinary bent of late. First there was the “Gherkin” by architect Norman Foster; now there is the “Cheese Grater” by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners, London. The city's next major high-rise, mothballed for three years during the foundation stage but about to spring to life, got its nickname thanks to its silvery leaning south facade. Passersby likely will find the profile of 122 Leadenhall Street to be the building's most striking feature. But project engineers are more intrigued by the node connections within the structure's expressed structural-steel megaframe. Photo: Courtesy Of British Land The 224-m-tall
Al Maktoum International Airport, located in Jebel Ali, Dubai, is the largest greenfield airport project currently under construction in the world. By 2013, it is expected to handle more freight—up to 12 million tonnes per year—than any other cargo airport in the world. The first of the airport's five 2.8-mile-long runways opened in June 2010, and the first of 16 cargo terminals has been completed.Expected to open next year, a passenger terminal capable of handling seven million passengers annually is now complete and undergoing testing. Two additional passenger terminals are in the design stage.Three cargo carriers are now operating at
Construction of the first-ever railway line in the oil-producing African nation of Chad is set to start next year. The former French colony signed a $7-billion contract with the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. in mid-March. The new, 1,344-kilometer-long railway will link landlocked Chad to its neighbor to the west, Cameroon, and its neighbor to the east, Sudan. The route is expected to facilitate access to the international markets.CCECC President Yuan Li told reporters in N'Djamena during the signing of the construction deal that the project will be undertaken in two phases.To be completed in four years, the first phase
Even though corrosion causes substantial damage to U.S. infrastructure every year, “corrosion is not well understood,” says Ted Greene, professor of mechanical engineering at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston. Receiving support from NACE International—originally known as the National Association of Corrosion Engineers—a Federal Highway Administration study on the direct costs associated with metallic corrosion in nearly every U.S. industry sector suggested the total annual estimated direct cost in the U.S. is $276 billion, about 3.1% of the nation's GDP. When indirect costs are included, that total is estimated to be as high as $552 billion.The corrosion of metals depends
Preliminary analysis of a ceiling light fixture that fell into moving traffic in early February at Boston's Big Dig tunnel system suggests the fixture shows signs of severe corrosion caused by salt from snow and ice treatment. Performed by West Boylston, Mass.-based Massachusetts Materials Research, the analysis indicates the fixture failed because of severe corrosion to the aluminum wire way at the locations where the light assembly was attached with stainless-steel clips, according to a Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation report released on April 13. The incident caused no injuries and no property damage.In a report released on April 6, MassDOT
The Spanish firm Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas SA, ranked 13th on ENR's list of the top global contractors, has won a $1.72-billion contract in partnership with Algeria's ETRHB Haddad to build a 66-kilometer rail line in Algeria. The line will connect the city of Tlemcen, the western terminus of the country's rail network, with the town of Akkid Abbas on the Moroccan border. The contract was awarded by the Algerian government through the Agence National d'Etudes et Suivi de Realisations des Investissements Ferroviaires, or ANESRIF, an agency created in 2005 to improve the country's railway system.The contract calls for
A congressional budget deal on April 8 averted a shutdown of federal agencies, but some of the pact's roughly $38 billion in spending cuts fall on construction programs. The Transportation Dept.'s $2.5 billion in 2011 high-speed passenger rail funding was zeroed out. Lawmakers also rescinded $400 million in unobligated high-speed rail funds from 2010. Federal Transit Administration capital grants were sliced by $680 million. Other cuts include $997 million from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency aid for state revolving funds that finance sewage-treatment and drinking-water projects. Some reductions will not result in cuts in construction projects. For example, appropriators list a
While Japan struggles to stabilise its wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, engineers in Ukraine are only now starting construction of a new enclosure for Chernobyl’s fourth reactor, almost exactly 25 years after it exploded causing immense human and environmental damage in the region and globally. (ENR November 24, 2008, page. 80)It's too early to say whether the Japanese will need their version of Chernobyl’s $1.4 billion, 29,000-tonne steelwork safe confinement in which to clear away their nuclear ruins. But the hard lessons learnt in Ukraine’s $2.2-billionthe shelter implementation plan following the 26 April 1986 disaster could give Japan’s clean-up a
Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy is reporting that workers have successfully stemmed the flow of fluids from a well that blew out April 19. The blowout resulted in thousands of gallons of drilling waste fluids leaking into local fields, streams and Towanda Creek. Related Links: Natural Gas Well Blows Out In Bradford County, Pa. The well blowout occurred during hydrofracking operations at a well operated by Chesapeake around 11:45 p.m.on April 19. Although the well emitted what Chesapeake is calling “limited amounts of gas,” gas plume modeling performed by both the Bradford County Emergency Management Agency and Chesapeake suggests that “any
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