Georgia Institute of Technology professor Charles M. Eastman, long considered a research guru for computer-based building design and construction, displays parental pride in his latest brainchild: Georgia Tech's Digital Building Laboratory. Unlike Eastman's past efforts, starting some 40 years ago, the fledgling DBL, created in 2009 to help improve building design and construction through the aid of digital tools, is a collaboration among academics and players in the buildings-sector food chain. “This is industry and academia together,” says Eastman, DBL's director and a professor of both architecture and computing at Georgia Tech, Atlanta. “To me, it is so obvious that
Everyone in the A/E/C industry uses email to manage the multifaceted communications that zip back and forth among key players on design and construction projects. But tracking emails and searching for key discussion threads amid complex, far-flung projects has become even more difficult in an era of overloaded in-boxes. Mail Manager, an email plug-in that works with Microsoft Outlook, claims to offer unique features to ease the process of tracking, filing, searching and organizing project communications for A/E/C firms. Built by Arup’s Oasys Software division, Mail Manager has been on the market for more than six years. But recent improvements
An infrastructure construction software vendor, who specializes in design and analysis applications, is working to have it both ways. As a privately held company, Bentley Systems Inc., Exton, Pa., is not required to file statements with securities regulators, as publicly traded companies must do. But not filing means Bentley misses the PR bang that comes when annual statements are released by its publicly traded competition. So on March 2, Bentley held its first “annual report” conference call with analysts and investors, as well as trade journalists, to proclaim successes, announce new business moves and reiterate some announcements of the preceding
The Portland, Ore., Bureau of Environmental Services and Salem, Ore.-based contractor Emery & Sons Construction Inc. on a recent project needed precision to bore a new sewer line beneath two trolley tracks near an existing steam vent in downtown Portland. They turned to an up-and-coming technology: laser-guided boring. Photo Courtesy Of Emery & Sons The laser-guided boring system allows crews to precisely place materials and work in tight spaces. Using a Pella, Iowa-based Vermeer AXIS tool, the laser system provides near-exact placement of a bored tunnel and then pulls the pipe back through when complete—“a marvelous machine,” says Bill Theiss,
Researchers are developing a nano-material they hope will pinpoint exact locations of structural strain; the nanomaterial will self-diagnose dynamically and measure the strain. Image: Courtesy Nanosi Advanced Technology Inc. Top sample contains imbedded fluorescent silicon nanoparticles; the bottom sample doesn’t. The material is fluorescent silicon nanoparticles (Si-NP), and the research seeks to validate relationships between the Si-NP fluorescence peak and the macro-level state of strain. The success of the research revolves around a phenomenon known as the Stokes shift, which refers to the longer wavelength of electromagnetic energy emitted as a result of losing some absorbed energy, says Charles Marsh,
To expedite removal of a key radioactive threat close to the Columbia River, the U.S. Energy Dept. hopes to dismantle a long-dormant nuclear reactor at the Hanford nuclear-waste site in Washington state with robotic technology instead of “cocooning” the structure for long-term storage, as has been done with five similar structures at the site. The multistory, 50,000-sq-ft K-East Reactor, which houses 240,000 graphite blocks that make up the reactor core, is a special case because of soil contamination around and under the structure, says Tom Teynor, DOE project director for the reactor. The agency and its contractors are testing new
The business of delivering software as a service over the Internet and sending heavy processing and collaboration tasks to high-speed computers in remote data centers is finding a home in construction. For example, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product called SITEOPS applies the horsepower of cloud computing to its proprietary algorithms that will find the most cost-effective configuration, grading and drainage plan for development. It is a site optimization tool that approaches the issue the way a supercomputer plays chess: It thinks through every possible play and countermove to the end of the game to find the optimal solution. Sold on a
A hurricane is rising in the farmland of northwestern South Carolina, and it is going to stay there for the foreseeable future, ripping off roofs, driving rain through walls, shattering windows and shredding buildings. That’s the purpose of a $40-million building materials and assemblies test facility nearing completion in Chester County, S.C. It is designed to attack full- scale test structures with the swirling winds and rains of hurricanes, the pounding hail of severe thunderstorms, or the wind-driven embers of wildfires. The owner is the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), a Tampa, Fla.-based insurance industry group whose member
The Essential Element, a Hopewell, N.J.-based company, has put “off the grid” on the radar. The company’s combination of new technologies in water purification and energy generation has led to the creation of HYDRA, a 20,000-gal-per-day water purifier the company claims is the first self-sustainable, portable water filtration system. Photo: Essential Element The HYDRA features 12 solar panels that produce 2.88 kW to power the 16-ft-long assembly, which can be transported in a truck bed or on a utility trailer. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" In their regular jobs at Oil Free Now LLC, Woodbury, Conn., David Squires and
Heating, ventilating and air- conditioning systems are often invisible to the occupant. Hidden behind walls and snaking through ceilings, HVAC is noticed only when it breaks down. Photo: Jeffrey Rubenstone / ENR A live feed of McQuay’s testing facility in Staunton, Va., is the centerpiece of the Solution Plaza’s conference room, which also sports its own variable-refrigerant-volume system. Photo: Jeffrey Rubenstone / ENR At the Daikin-McQuay Solutions Plaza in Jersey City, N.J., mechanical systems—which normally are relegated to closets, rooftops and wall spaces—are the main attraction, highlighting the latest offerings in energy-efficient building design. (above/below) Photo: McQuay McQuay International, a
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