Internal-combustion engines were still novel in 1892, when German engineer Rudolf Diesel filed a patent for a compression-ignition engine running on fuel oil that rivaled contemporary spark-ignition gasoline technology. A little more than a century later, his name is ubiquitous among heavy-duty vehicles worldwide, as diesel engines power 19 out of every 20 construction and utility machines in the field. But this success comes at a price. The traditional clattering, smoke-belching behemoths are heading for the boneyards as clean-air initiatives in the U.S. and abroad push a new generation of cleaner-running, more powerful motors into the marketplace, both on and
The seamless and streamlined transport of goods to market has become a reality in Southern California. It begins in an Asian port, where a container of goods is loaded onto a post-Panamax-sized ship. The deep-draft vessel is scheduled to reach the Port of Long Beach on a specific date. The port has been dredged deep enough to allow the loaded ship to reach the dock. Upon arrival, cargo is swiftly unloaded onto trains that speed through urban areas to their destination, thanks to the recently completed Alameda Corridor. Elsewhere in the country, chronic freight congestion is still very much an
Practically every business, social institution, government agency and family relies on cyber systems for the smallest routines in every phase of daily life. These individual computers and networks are considered prime targets for attack and, worse, are vulnerable to serious interruption by terrorists operating from remote locations. The consequences would be incalculable. In one way or another, large portions of the country could be struck electronically deaf and blind if key links were successfully cut. Commerce would be seriously impeded and critical human services and activities would be curtailed. Since arrival of the dreaded nuisance "hacker," or the electronic era's
Now that the U.S. is in an ongoing war on terrorism, security is taking a central role in almost every building type. But how do you determine what needs securing and at what costs? "People feel they have to protect everybody from everything, but no one has that type of budget, so you have to prioritize," says Glen Rasmussen, senior associate focused on security for OWP/P Architects, Chicago. Sean Ahrens, a senior security manager from Chantilly, Va.-based consultant Gage Babcock, says security costs for new buildings are often viewed as a percentage of construction but that percent can range dramatically.
Eighteen months after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, meaningful progress on the war against terror is difficult to assess. Great strides have been taken in creating new institutions and operations, yet it is now clear that this will be a longer march than many people thought. The Bush administration got a badly needed boost March 1 with the capture in Pakistan of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Mohammed, who had been on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most-wanted list of terrorists for months, reportedly was the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter
Because of their climate or geology different countries have developed their own special skills for engineering building resistance to survive extreme local conditions. Northern Ireland faces few such natural challenges, but its hard history of political violence provided design expertise that may now be in demand as other countries confront their buildings' vulnerability to terrorism. In decades of strife, Northern Ireland engineers have progressively learned how to design buildings to fend off all sorts of attacks–from lone rifle shots to earth-trembling car bombs. "In the early days, the threat was unknown and was evolving rapidly," says a senior official at
The statistics describing the nation's oil and gas infrastructure reflect a vast and highly decentralized energy industry. The U.S. is home to roughly 878,000 wells, 161 oil refineries, 726 gas-processing plants, 1,280,000 miles of natural gas pipeline and 220,000 miles of oil pipe, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Thousands of independent owners and operators are the driving force connecting these elements. The sprawling nature of the energy supply chain reveals both its strength and weakness. Consequently, a single act of sabotage at any one point in this chain is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the system
When Ted Prociv got a call from the U.S. Defense Dept. in 1994 to take a top job in its chemical and biological defense program, that area of the Pentagon had a multi-billion-dollar budget but was considered an agency backwater and hardly a career builder. Nearly a decade later, the niche now is front and center, and the Ph.D. chemist has parlayed good experience and great connections into a more recent role as president and CEO of Versar Inc., a Springfield, Va., engineering firm that has boomed along with the national obsession over chemical and biological security. The national security
IN THE CANS Key to the steel-plate, shear-wall core are large-diameter pipe columns filled with 10,000-psi concrete. (Photo courtesy of JAJones/Absher) At the $215-million U.S. Federal Courthouse in quake-prone Seattle, the designers are proving beyond doubt that it's not always a crime to deceive for appearance's sake. Their "secret" weapon in their cabal to create a building that sings out liberty and justice but provides top security and seismic safety is a hybrid shear-wall core. The system, considered a first, combines steel plates, braces and beams into cells "guarded" at the corners by giant steel "cans" filled with concrete. The
Since the 1920s, the family owned heavy contractor quietly toiled, but grew large, building lots of infrastructure in and around New York City. It took a more public stance decades later in rushing in to dig out and rebuild the devestated Ground Zero area of Manhattan after 9/11.
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