PHOTO Courtesy of Michigan State University Nizar Lajnef installs a battery-less, vibration-powered sensor to record asphalt cracking, creating a data time line of its breakdown. Related Links: How Sensors on I-10 Twin Span Bridge Reduce Unknowns Bridge Owners Toolbox: Sensors, Gauges, Radars, Models Researchers are testing novel infrastructure-monitoring sensors on roads. The new sensors are powered by passing vehicles.The test could address a major flaw in sensors that are embedded to monitor degradation of infrastructure: They lose power, says Nizar Lajnef, assistant professor of civil and environment engineering at Michigan State University."Battery-powered sensors last only two to three years, max,"
Related Links: ZweigWhite survey Detailed survey reports about the use of information technology in the industry provide insight into the real world experiences and plans of practitioners, so the release of results of an annual survey that has been analyzing it for 16 years is worthy of attention. ZweigWhite, a Fayetteville, Ark.-based business management resource for designers and planners, recently released its 2014 Information Technology Survey of Architecture, Engineering, Planning & Environmental Consulting Firms. It provides a granular, representative sampling of IT use at such firms, as well as a forecast. The annual reports are used by many firms for
Image Courtesy Core studio | Thornton Tomasetti Output from a hackathon where four people designed different parts of a building. Related Links: Mobile 3D-Model Viewer, Mark-Up Software Now Available Makerbot's New 3D Digitizer Turns Physical Objects Digital A collaboration tool that allows multiple authors of a Grasshopper 3D design model to stream geometry to the web in real time is available at no cost by downloading a plug-in. The tool, called Platypus, works like a chat room for parametric geometry and allows on-the-fly 3D model mashups in a browser.Since Platypus's late-April release, there have been hundreds of downloads from www.3dplatyp.us,
Related Links: Blog Post by Carl Bass, Autodesk CEO Autodesk's Acquisition of Get The Point Technology Weds Field Layout to Design Files Autodesk is making a big commitment to 3D printing with three recent moves to put its software and services, and even some new hardware, at the center of that industry.Autodesk CEO and President Carl Bass blogged on May 14 that later this year the company will launch an open-source software platform called Spark for driving 3D printers. He also announced the company will start selling its own 3D printer, whose design will be open-sourced as part of the
Related Links: 3D Hubs global 3D printer network Recent conversations with Autodesk’s technologists, a tour of Autodesk’s “Pier 9” workshop on the San Francisco waterfront and an encounter with Carl Bass, Autodesk president and CEO, builds an appreciation for the company’s deepening interest in 3D printing.The workshop is a 27,000 sq ft, two-story structure housing 115 people on a pier near Autodesk’s San Francisco offices at the foot of Market Street. It opened last fall and has been equipped with offices, presentation spaces, a test kitchen, a Baskin Robbins ice cream parlor and a series of workspaces separately equipped for
ENR FutureTech is a growing event that showcases some of the most cutting edge thinking and practices regarding technology in construction practices. Now, the event is opening up to more ideas from you.The technology editors of ENR are issuing a call for presentations for the next ENR FutureTech event, slated for Dec. 11 at the Georgia Tech Conference Center in Atlanta.The entry form is here.Past year's presentations can be viewed here.If you have any questions, please send an email to: enr_web_editors@mcgraw-hill.com.
Keeping the workforce and public safe as the project swirls through its cycles requires that managers be vigilant analysts, aggressive contingency planners, flexible adjusters, great communicators and effective safety trainers.
Energy-efficient buildings are not living up to their promise. The problem is serious, yet somewhat puzzling. Efficient building technologies are becoming more and more available; government regulations and company policies are supporting a drive for energy efficiency more than ever and building energy performance targets remain low. Yet when high-performance buildings are delivered they are not matching expectationsThe reasons for the performance deficit can be attributed to multiple issues. Building system and envelope modeling may be inadequate, possibly hampered by incomplete application of the tools—probably because they are not calibrated to actual operating conditions. Contractors may understand each building system
Image Courtesy Openroute Inc. OpenRoute's wireless signal repeaters, housed in "yellow Pelican cases" for durability, can be strapped onto anything, from cranes to pillars. Image Courtesy Openroute Inc. As a building rises, repeaters are added, one by one, around the site to ensure continued wireless connectivity and scalability to reach every level of the evolving building. Related Links: OpenSource's Website Two Ways to Quickly Connect to a Remote Jobsite A new hardware system allows a jobsite's wireless signal to grow with construction. Called OpenRoute, it functions as a series of synchronized wireless signal repeaters, strategically placed and moved around the
Image Courtesy of Bentley Mixed Bag 3D model of layers of buried utilities is auto-generated from many sources and corrected and annotated by object Related Links: Latest Bentley App Brings Geospatial Data to the Field Bentley: BIM Also Means Information Mobility Bentley Systems' latest addition to its suite of infrastructure design software helps utilities gather everything they know about existing systems and assigns reliability values as a foundation for future planning.The product—referred to as SUE, for subsurface utilities engineering—uses BIM-style tools to create intelligent 3D models of combined subsurface utility systems, which it does by automating the use of legacy
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