Rendering courtesy of Ena Cheung/Thornton Tomasetti Investigators are using forensic information modeling to study structural failures, such as the 2007 highway bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Red color indicates steel corrosion. Structural engineers are harnessing technology's power to learn from failures and ultimately improve the built environment. New interactive digital databases—similar to YouTube, SharePoint and Wikipedia—offer the potential to improve codes and practice, agree engineers. With global engineering research, knowledge and failure data at their fingertips, designers are able to connect the dots as never before."We are on the brink of [an information] revolution," said engineer Santiago Pujol at the 2012
Surprisingly positive results from the first of four large-scale tests of reinforced-concrete link beams with embedded structural steel sections have further opened the door to more-constructible concrete towers in highly seismic zones. Link beams over openings in concrete shear-wall cores have long been the bane of builders because of intense reinforcing-steel congestion, which slows construction.During the first-ever large-scale test, the beam performed much better than anticipated. Given the importance of link beams in core-wall buildings, understanding performance at a meaningful scale is of "critical importance," says Ron Klemencic, president of structural engineer Magnusson Klemencic Associates (MKA), Seattle.MKA is one of
The main structural elements of the retractable skylight, each 10.5 tons, had to be lifted at night onto their rooftop rail girders, using three cranes.
With all the heavy lifting done, three waterfalls cascading and the fish spawning, no one would suspect how much strenuous exercise it took to design, engineer and construct a 1,225-ft-long replica of Salt Lake City's City Creek.
Related Links: Disappearing Act is a 'Whalebone' of a Feat Creek Replica at City Creek is so Real, it Even has Fish For Shelley R. Clark, a structural engineer for the world's most complicated retractable skylight, frustration became the mother of invention. But ultimately, it took her firm Magnusson Klemencic Associates only 15 minutes to turn
After tortured beginnings that included a false start followed by a protracted design competition during which the eventual winner "gambled" $2 million, a shroud of secrecy has enveloped the planned 1-kilometer-tall Kingdom Tower, to be sited north of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Photo Courtesy of ASHRAE An Oberlin College building, designed for net-zero energy use, has not performed as well as hoped. Green does not necessarily mean energy-efficient. "A lot of people think it does," said consulting engineer Lawrence G. Spielvogel at the ASHRAE winter conference last month. The veteran mechanical engineer then charged that the long-used energy standard for commercial building systems, ASHRAE 90.1, "provides and requires a variety of means to waste energy efficiently, which is why so many 'green' buildings have high energy use."Among many things, Spielvogel—a known gadfly—blames code-required control systems for waste. "Good mechanical engineers do not
Related Links: Related Story: Resilient Systems Not Yet Tested by a Quake Structural engineer Steven Tipping doesn't often attend industry events, let alone introduce himself to keynote speakers. But he is glad he did just that on Dec. 5, 2007. So is the team for the $145.5-million San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Headquarters, a nearly finished job with a difficult past.Tipping's actions at the Dec. 5 breakfast—at which a project of his was recognized and he heard Webcor Builders' Phillip Williams speak—inadvertently helped recenter the ailing job. The 13-story showcase for sustainable design and construction owes its existence, in part,
Related Links: Main Story: Tensioning Eases Stress on a 13-Story Sustainability Showcase Tipping Mar's vertically post-tensioned concrete shear walls in the 164-ft-tall San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Headquarters is the most ambitious—and tallest—example to date of a family of lateral-load-resisting structures designed to minimize damage in a major earthquake and allow immediate reoccupancy. U.S. structural practitioners and researchers have been developing the self-centering systems, modeled after PT bridge construction, for about a decade.Self-centering structures, when designed in structural steel, have become known as "rocking frames." In addition to concrete systems, there are examples of self-centering PT structures in precast concrete
A federal judge in New Mexico has ruled in favor of plaintiffs who contended that the portions of the 2007 Albuquerque Energy Conservation Code are preempted by federal law. The Jan. 25 decision by U.S. District Judge Martha Vazquez essentially rejected the city’s attempt, through its building code, to impose heating, ventilating and air conditioning equipment-efficiency standards in commercial, multi-family and single-family residential buildings that are more stringent than federal standards. The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 30, 2010 by a group led by the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute. In another move late last year, the Albuquerque city
