Construction technology

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A new application turns hard-to-manage physical documentation into a searchable cloud and mobile-enabled database to save time spent searching for operational and achieved facility management documents.

     The United States is hungry for concrete. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, in 2014 the U.S. produced 80.5 million tons of Portland cement and 2.2 million tons of masonry cement. Portland cement is a primary ingredient in concrete, and most of the cement produced domestically went to the production of concrete. Though concrete is a sustainable material the amount produced every year results in significant environmental impact, making the development of recycled aggregate sources of dire import.

Regulation would apply to drones used for such tasks as bridge, power line and pipeline inspections.

Autodesk’s cloud service, called Forge, is free for developers for the next 90 days, the company announced at its inaugural conference for application programming interface developers. It also announced new investment in three start-ups.

The growth of BIM, with its densely built models, is driving earlier selection of building products in the construction process.

As pressure mounts on coal-and natural-gas-fired power plants—as well as cement kilns—to reduce CO2 emissions, researchers are looking to not only capture and store those emissions but also to convert CO2 into marketable products.