Photo Courtesy of Port of Anchorage Expansion plan features U-shaped cells backfilled with earth and gravel to create new land. Related Links: Port of Anchorage Homepage Port of Anchorage Info from World Port Source The $700-million Port of Anchorage expansion project is stalled in court, where the engineer says its design is not to blame.PND Engineers Inc., a Seattle-based firm with offices in Alaska, designed the 135-acre expansion using the open-cell sheet-pile style to limit corrosion and persistent ice buildup on pile-supported docks. The design drives steel sheets into U-shaped cells, which are backfilled with earth and gravel to create
Related Links: Cracks Delay Floating Bridge Project Test Pontoon Prepares Team For Real-Time Construction Flaws in the design led to cracks during post-tensioning of the first four concrete pontoons built for the replacement of the world's longest floating bridge in Seattle, says the Washington State Dept. of Transportation. The fix could cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially delay the $4.13-billion project.In detailing a report from a blue-ribbon review panel, state Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond maintained that the pontoons—designed to a 75-year life cycle—are structurally sound. But the report revealed that five cracks up to .03
Photo Courtesy of Omega Morgan A 3,400-ton truss bridge slid onto a beam setup and traveled in an arc at a painstaking pace to avoid hitting nearby homes. Photo Courtesy of Omega Morgan Related Links: Vermont Bridge Slides Into Future A Bridge Slips And Slides Into Place Cleveland Crossing's Smooth Slide Massive Truss Rolls Into Place About eight inches per push—that is how the 3,400-ton Sellwood Bridge moved forward on Jan. 19 in Portland, Ore. The owner, Multnomah County, moved the 87-year-old, 1,100-ft-long steel truss 66 ft to the north using the span as a detour bridge, while a joint
Photo Courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Energy Maintenance at site's inactive B Plant facility is among work to be affected. In a plan to save what it says will be between $7 million and $9 million annually over the next five years, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. is changing its subcontracting policies in hiring firms to help manage nuclear-waste remediation and demolition at the U.S. Energy Dept.'s Hanford site in central Washington. The changes come as cleanup budgets at the former weapon-production complex are expected to flatten or decline.The company, a unit of CH2M Hill Cos., manages cleanup of Hanford's
Dean C. Allen, CEO of Seattle-based mechanical contractor McKinstry, doesn't want to hear that job candidates don't need to be good at math or that science isn't for everyone.
EGlen Frank's inaugural run as a project manager couldn't have had a tougher challenge: to bore a light-rail tunnel just 13.5 ft under Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle with a 200-ft vertical drop, a right-hand turn and S-turns through one mile.
Brian D. Winter never thought one project would set the tone for his entire career. Winter is the National Park Service's lead on the largest-ever dam-removal and river-restoration project in the U.S.
Photo Courtesy of Idaho Power Utility operators release silver iodide solution into the clouds when weather conditions are optimal, hoping to increase snowfall. Related Links: Scientific American: Does Cloud Seeding Work? Utah Cloud Seeding Home Page Idaho Power, which depends upon hydropower to serve about 500,000 customers in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon, is trying to augment its water supply by cloud seeding.While the concept dates from the 1940s, Idaho Power is pushing to expand its decade-old program to increase snowpack—and stronger runoff for its hydroelectric generation facilities—by as much as 15% annually.Cloud seeding involves injecting silver iodinde into supercool
A $107-million six-mile, single-track extension of the Portland Streetcar Loop was built entirely within city streets, presenting traffic management issues.
Photo by AP Wideworld August fire in Washington state burned thousands of acres and more than 60 homes. Small contractors replacing the deck on a small bridge last August may have started a big fire in the dry hills of eastern Washington state. No one was killed, but property damage costs are steep, and the contractors and their liability insurers could face big claims.A dozen property owners in Washington state have filed a lawsuit that blames the bridge's general contractor and steel erector for a fire that consumed 23,500 acres and more than 60 homes in the area of Cle
