Related Links: NOAA's Digital Coast Site Seasketch Tool Site Superstorm Sandy destroyed the shorelines and seabeds of the East Coast to such an extent that federal agencies plan to remap the coastline.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Geological Survey and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are using emergency supplemental funds to survey the coast to collect high-resolution topographic and hydrographic data. The LiDAR surveying will be recording water depths and any submerged debris that may have altered shorelines from South Carolina to Maine.The $50-million project will begin work this fall. Some contracts already have been awarded, with more
David Kligman for Pacific Gas and Electric Company PG&E's custom Ford Escape hybrids use a new gas-detection tech that allows them to identify gas-pipe leaks while driving on the highway. Related Links: Picarro Survey Device Boston University's Study In early August, a specially equipped sports-utility vehicle detected four potential gas-pipe leaks while motoring along a California highway. The improved detection capacity is due to a recently developed, highly sensitive gas-leak detection technology.The technology, developed by Picarro, Santa Clara, Calif., uses a patented form of cavity-ring down spectroscopy (CRDS) to detect gas leaks even while driving. CRDS measures the near-infrared absorption
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
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