A massive effort to revamp the American air-traffic-control system from land-based to satellite-based equipment, dubbed NextGen, could result in greater flight efficiency and fuel cost savings at all major hubs by 2014, says Randolph Babbitt, Federal Aviation Administration chief. He also stressed the need for the next generation of land-side and air-side infrastructure. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" Babbitt urged members of the American Association of Airport Executives last month in Dallas to work toward implementing multimodalism. “We have to advance our infrastructure to NextGen standards,” he said. “It’s the only way to keep pace with the rest of
The Washington State Dept. of Transportation is creating a list of best construction practices for floating bridges, based on results of tests conducted on a pontoon built at one-sixth the typical size. The best practices will be used by the design-build team that won the contract to build new pontoons for the state Route 520 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. At 2,285 meters, SR 520�s bridge is the longest of its kind in the world. Photo: WSDOT Engineers run curing tests on a scale-model pontoon at a yard near Olympia, Wash., in an attempt to minimize cracks. Photo: WSDOT WSDOT and
Last month, more than 1,100 lb of strategically placed explosives brought down the 24,000-ton, 455-ft-tall cooling tower at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Savannah River site in Aiken, S.C., the second largest such structure to be imploded, says the firm. “The implosion surpassed everyone’s expectations,” says Doug Loizeaux, vice president of Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI), Phoenix, Md. The firm was the explosives preparation and performance subcontractor to American Demolition and Nuclear Decommissioning, Grand Island, N.Y., which received the approximately $4-million contract to implode the former nuclear-site cooling tower and remove debris. The latter task will be handled by LVI Services
In an otherwise troubled time for new coal-fired projects, the Mississippi Public Service Commission has approved Gulfport, Miss.-based Mississippi Power�s plans to build a new 582-MW integrated gasification/combined-cycle plant in Kemper County�but with a $2.88-billion cost cap. Photo: Southern Cos. Regulators set a $2.88-billion construction cap�after an initial $2.4-billion limit�on Mississippi Power�s planned 582-MW plant. The utility owner had asked for $3.2 billion. Mississippi Power plans to complete the Kemper project as soon as 2014, said utility spokeswoman Cindy Duvall. The prime construction contractor will be selected soon, with project construction to be managed by Southern Co. Engineering and Construction
As contractors mobilized to berm Louisiana’s shoreline to protect its wetlands from oil gushing out of a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, the nation focused on the plan’s chances for success, the disaster’s economic and environmental consequences, and the future of the region’s offshore oil industry. A computer modeling study released on June 3 suggests the oil from the spill in the Gulf of Mexico may extend up the Atlantic coast and into open ocean as early as this summer. Crews mobilize heavy equipment to build oil-blocking berms on Dauphin Island, Ala. var so = new FlashObject("http://natalie.feedroom.com/construction/natoneclip/Player.swf","Player", "300",
The Washington Monument in Baltimore has been closed to the public in light of a recent engineering study that found its parapet to be unsafe. CVM Engineering of Philadelphia studied the 178-ft-tall marble monument, which predates the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., as part of a $200,000 master plan to restore the monument and its surrounding squares. CVM reported that, on the parapet, mortar between slabs was missing and metal support brackets were rust- ed and should be replaced. Engineers recommended $1 million in total repairs, including $300,000 for work on the parapet. The monument, which was completed in 1829,
The U.S. Green Building Council is defending its decision to uphold the highest certification to be granted a public high school under its green-building rating system, called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The engineers who filed the challenge to the LEED-New Construction Gold certification on behalf of a group of taxpayers in Eagle River, Wis., say the decision to uphold the certification damages the credibility of USGBC. The consulting engineers were pro bono technical experts for the five people who filed the 125-page appeal on Dec. 23, 2008, when Northland Pines High School was two years old. Consulting engineers
A new process that measures the value of the social and environmental benefits of projects is generating buzz among academics, the private sector, public entities and government agencies. Developed by Omaha, Neb.-based engineering consultant HDR, the Sustainable Return on Investment (SROI) process allows decision-makers to evaluate a potential project’s overall sustainability benefits by assigning monetary values to environmental, social and economic impacts. Image Photo: Diagram Courtesy Of HDR The values on the vertical axis show the probability that the corresponding return on investment values, described on the horizontal axis, will not be exceeded by the actual ROI outcome. “Communities want
Prefabricated segmental bridge designs that have helped speed construction and save money in many parts of the country may also have a place in seismically active regions, according to recent tests conducted by the University of Buffalo’s Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, and its Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER). As part of a Federal Highway Administration-funded project exploring seismic response of Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) systems, the research team erected a half-scale 60-ft-long, eight-segment post-tensioned superstructure supported by 10 ft, 5 in. tall hollow piers on 10 x 10 ft concrete foundation blocks. The blocks were
Louisiana’s Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration awarded The Shaw Group Inc. the job as project manager on a $360-million project to construct berms along coastal barrier islands to stop the invasion of oil from the BP spill on delicate marshes. Related Links: Map of the project area on the west side of the Mississippi Delta Within 24 hours of signing the contract, Baton Rouge-based Shaw had two bucket dredges on their way to begin moving sand. The state signed emergency permits for the work late June 2, after it was announced that BP would fund the project as a
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