Structural repairs to a sponge coker unit at this CITGO petroleum refinery required years of planning because of a narrow window of just 30 days to execute the $9.4-million project, which involved modifications to coke chutes, coke pit walls and floors, and head decks as well as supporting columns and beams. Related Links: Click here to return to Introduction Click here to read about Best Projects 2011 Preparations included extensive training for each crew member—from labor to management—in the key areas of safety, task training and execution.Elgin, Ill.-based concrete contractor STRUCTURAL commandeered more than 200 repair specialists, dividing work into

From 24 ft above grade to 60 ft below it, the $88.4-million Ford Center variously incorporates multiple concrete systems that include pan joists, beams, girders, shear walls, columns, slab on grade, pile caps and auger cast piles—more than 13,000 cu yd of cast-in-place concrete in all.

Washington, Ind., didn't have the cash to upgrade five combined sewer overflows (CSO) discharging into Hawkins Creek, a frequent occurrence due to limited storage capacity and the age of the CSO collection system. Photo Courtesy of Mike Howery Constructed wetlands provided an economical solution to sewer overflows in Washington, Ind. Related Links: Click here to return to Introduction Click here to read about Best Projects 2011 Even 1/10-in. rainfalls triggered untreated discharges, resulting in the accumulation of pollutants once discharge pooled and dried.While a 2002 engineering study estimated it would cost $39.9 million—or roughly $7,500 per household—to properly capture and

The design-build contractor for the $465-million Cleveland Medical Mart and Convention Center—which includes a 767,000-sq-ft replacement of Cleveland's underground convention center—says it is on course to complete its $355-million contract on budget and two months ahead of its scheduled Sept. 15, 2013, completion. The expected early finish is made possible, in part, by the use of a hybrid delivery system that merges bridging design-build with early participation of the design-build contractor and its major subcontractors in a design-assist mode. Related Links: Cleveland Medical Mart and Convention Center Cleveland Medical Mart and Convention Center Northeast Ohio The team also credits collaborative

Murray Johnson had performed this sort of heavy lifting before, but the previous feat was just a warm-up. This time, the executive engineer for North Vancouver, British Columbia-based Buckland & Taylor Ltd. is shooting for a world record. He and his colleagues believe that the Milton-Madison Bridge, now being built over the Ohio River between Kentucky and Indiana, would involve the biggest truss slide in history. Related Links: Rapid Bridge-Building Toolkit Nears Final Field Tests Milton-Madison Bridge Website "We have specialized over the years in many crazy—I mean high-end—erection schemes. From that point of view, we have confidence," says Johnson.

Engineers and environmentalists around the world are keeping an eye on Decatur, Ill., where the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) has begun injecting dense-phase carbon dioxide into a porous rock layer more than a mile below the earth's surface. The methodology could provide a means for point sources of CO2 throughout the 60,000-sq-mile Illinois Basin, including more than 100 fossil-fuel-burning powerplants, to improve their environmental friendliness, given concerns about the contributions of CO2 emissions to global climate change. But the project will take an even more interesting turn in a little more than a year, when crews complete a second

While debate rages over whether the Keystone XL pipeline should be built for exporting Canadian oil sands to the U.S., the matter is a moot point in Whiting, Ind. There, more than 8,000 tradesmen are at work on the multibillion-dollar modernization of a BP refinery, an undertaking that will allow BP to process more heavy Canadian crude delivered by pipeline to the Midwest. Situated on a 1,400-acre site touching three cities, the 121-year-old refinery is the sixth-largest facility of its kind in U.S. and the third in the Midwest to recently be upgraded or to introduce equipment for the purpose

Related Article: Transportation Institutional Work Dominate Rankings Top Starts In The Tristate Region Rank Project Location Project Cost Owner Project Team 1 Delta/JFK IAT Redevelopment Terminal 4, Concourse B Queens, N.Y. $1.2 billion Delta Airlines GC Turner Construction Architect JV of Skidmore Owings & Merrill and Arup 2 Hudson Transmission Line Ridgefield, N.J.-New York, N.Y. $850 million Hudson Transmission Partners EPC Contractor JV of Siemens and Prysmian Cables & Systems Engineering/Architecture Burns & Roe 3 No. 7 Subway Line Extension — Systems, Finishes, Core and Shell of Site A New York, N.Y. $542 million MTA Capital Construction CM JV of

Overhead, an El train rumbles across Chicago's Devon-Sheridan viaduct. Below, amid cracks, spalls and exposed rebar, a network of strain gauges measures the amount of stress that has shifted from the original concrete structure to new supplementary steel shoring. As the structure continues to deteriorate, primarily from exposure to deicing chemicals, the steel columns and their concrete footings are expected to absorb more of the loading imposed by trains, the roadbed and the structure itself.The gauges measure the elastic movement of the steel columns each time a train crosses the overpass—as many as 450 times a day. The greater the

Overhead, an El train rumbles across Chicago's Devon-Sheridan viaduct. Below, amid cracks, spalls and exposed rebar, a network of strain gauges measures the amount of stress that has shifted from the original concrete structure to new supplementary steel shoring. Photo Courtesy of the Infrastructure Technology Institute Data culled from monitoring the structural performance of the Chicago Transit Authority's Devon-Sheridan viaduct will be used to develop models to predict the long-term performance of similar strucures. As the structure continues to deteriorate, primarily from exposure to deicing chemicals, the steel columns and their concrete footings are expected to absorb more of the