Elon Musk, well known as the founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, is now also well known for his recent Hyperloop Alpha Proposal outlining what he calls a “fifth mode of transportation.” But is this fifth mode of transportation feasible from an engineering and construction view, and how can engineers improve upon it?The hyperloop is like a muted, trackless version of a vactrain—a system to propel a vehicle along a maglev track inside a vacuum tube. Proponents claim the hyperloop could reach speeds of thousands of kilometers per hour. Similar vactrain and maglev ideas have been circulated and researched
Courtesy of Skanska; Bottom Courtesy CURT Nick Pfenning, (center) Mortenson Construction is part of the push for PDF standards. Related Links: General Contractor Coalition Forms To Draft PDF Creation Guidelines T he hodgepodge of plans, schematics and revisions in the portable document format (PDF) circulated within the construction industry is the focus of an initiative by general contractors called "All PDFs Created Equal."A coalition of general contractors recently met in Los Angeles to establish a set of best practices for PDF creation and sharing with which all players in the AEC community can agree.The meeting was hosted by Bluebeam Software
Related Links: The NEON project site Project description at LEO A DALY We will soon add the nation’s ecology to the evolving and expanding “Internet of Things.” Scientists have embarked upon a nationwide project to create a linked network of sensor-studded towers to study, for the next 30 years at least, the impacts of climate change, land use change and invasive species on the ecology at 60 sites across the U.S.A. The first goal is to establish a baseline of data representing the state of the ecology at those 60 locations before external influences begin to cause change.But before that
Image by Tony Jun Huang Images of a light beam without and with bubble lens. Professors from several colleges have joined forces to create the world's first plasmofluidic lens—a tiny water bubble used to manipulate and focus a beam of light at the nanoscale. Researchers say it could open doors to develop smaller, faster electronic circuitry.To make the lens, a low-intensity laser heats water on a gold-film surface, creating a water bubble, says Yongmin Liu, assistant professor in the mechanical and industrial engineering department and the electrical and computer engineering department at Northeastern University, Boston. The bubble's optical behavior remains
Courtesy AOC AOC just released a thinner, brighter version of its 16-in., USB 3.0 mobile monitor. Related Links: AOC's Monitor on Amazon https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/air-display/id368158927?mt=8 Air Display App An electronics manufacturer just released a lightweight, high-definition flat-screen monitor that increases in-the-field workers' screen real estate.The 16-in., 2.3-lb screens, made by AOC International, Taipei, Taiwan, are "just fabulous," says Connie Fuller, operations analyst at Hollywood Woodwork, a Hollywood, Fla.-based architectural firm. "I work on the West Coast and in Florida, and I travel back and forth," she says. "I had a big Dell monitor before this, and it wasn't convenient for travel."Now when
Related Links: Read the CII Study Corps Delivers 100-year Protection Plan Long before statistical whiz Nate Silver predicted the outcome of the 2012 presidential election and "Moneyball" became a household word, structural engineers employed the Monte Carlo method of simulating failures to fine-tune their designs of tall buildings and other critical structures. Now probabilistics is finding broader use among project estimators, planners and risk managers looking to cut down on schedule and cost variables that can suck valuable time, money and profit out of construction work.Roughly 56% of firms involved in construction use probabilistic methods to manage risk, according to
Photo by Tudor Van Hampton All Smiles Patrick Allin, Textura CEO and co-founder, met with upbeat investors on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on June 7 to watch the company trade its first shares on the open market. Related Links: Textura IPO Turns Up the Heat on Construction Tech Startups Textura Buys GradeBeam, Plans New Bidding Platform Before the opening bell rang on June 7, it took about 20 minutes for traders at the New York Stock Exchange to agree on a fair price for Textura Corp.'s initial public offering. The problem was a gap in supply
Image Courtesy Autodesk Inc. Anywhere App for the iPad will let InfraWorks Pro users view scenarios in 3D for collaboration anywhere, anytime. InfraWorks 360 Pro Hangout Related Links: WeoGeo, Map Data on Demand First came 3D modeling to the paper-based world of civil design and construction. Now, project stakeholders are beginning to picture their highways in the cloud.One new addition comes from the San Raphael, Calif.-based design software vendor Autodesk Inc., which released a cloud-enhanced version of its InfraWorks Civil 3-D Modeling package, named Autodesk InfraWorks 360 Pro, on Aug. 7. It brings to Autodesk's Civil 3-D modeling new abilities
Courtesy of Lloyd Wright This Texas-based wind research lab is designed to explore how an array of wind turbines affect one another and discover best design practices for turbine placement and blade design and angle. Related Links: SWiFT Construction Time Lapse Texas Tech National Wind Institute T he United State's first public-operated, multiple-turbine wind-research test facility recently completed its first phase of construction. It is designed to test the physics of how wind turbines interact in a wind array.The $4.5-million facility, dubbed SWiFT for "scaled wind-farm technology," is the result of a partnership between the U.S. Dept. of Energy, Sandia
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