Two companies with industrial- strength software for handling data for infrastructure operations and management have been bought by a vendor known for design and engineering software. The firm has its eye on delivering cradle-to-grave facilities-information management solutions. Bentley Systems Inc., Exton, Pa., announced on Feb. 9 the acquisition of San Diego-based Enterprise Informatics Inc. and U.K.-based Exor Corp. Bentley says it plans to develop an asset data management platform to help operations and maintenance staff members “take full advantage of information modeling.” Enterprise Informatics’ eB Insight software is used in the energy, nuclear, rail and government sectors to provide enterprise-level
The Haitian government has estimated it will take 10 years and $3 billion to repair the damage caused by Jan. 12’s magnitude-7 earthquake, although some warn it may cost more than three times that amount.
As the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act nears its one-year anniversary, waste-cleanup firms anticipate another year of backlog boosts. But their peers in the water and wastewater infrastructure sector hope a U.S.-Canada agreement signed on Feb. 5 will ease “Buy American” tensions that have been dogging progress of their stimulus-funded work. Photo: Courtesy of PCL Design firms and contractors have seen few ARRA drinking-water and wastewater projects. Georgia, Minnesota and Wisconsin have put nearly all their ARRA-financed water projects out for bid, but work in other states is being held up by the ‘Buy American’ requirement. Related Links: As Federal
For the second time in four months a 240-ton leaf of a main Ohio River miter-gate lock has failed, severely restricting shipping and signaling, once again, that it can be perilous to depend on aging infrastructure. Photo: USACE Photo: USACE Snapped Miter anchor arm may have fallen to fatigue. X-rays of the other arms at the lock show no cracks. On Jan. 27, as the main-chamber, downstream gate of the Greenup Lock and Dam, near Greenup, Ky., neared closure, operators heard a pop and the landside leaf canted over, but it did not fall. Mike Keathley, the U.S. Army Corps
Realizing that software interoperability only represents the potential to pass data between differing software products and is not an end in itself, Bentley Systems Inc., Exton, Pa., has developed and is offering for free a set of workflow tools to help designers actually make good use of it. + Image The company announced on Jan. 27 that it is releasing free plug-ins that not only pass back and forth and back again models and tracked revisions within Bentley’s 3-D structural modeling program and two of Bentley’s analysis programs, but it also is giving away a plug-in for San Rafael, Calif.-based
The U.S. government’s long-term role in Haiti’s recovery from the devastation of the magnitude-7 earthquake on Jan. 12 is still not clearly defined, and it may not be for weeks and months to come. But in the short term, as logistics improve and food and water distribution stabilizes, the creation of temporary housing and medical facilities is at the forefront of the second phase of operations. Other governments and industry volunteers also are playing a role. Photo: U.S. Navy Photo By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Chris Lussier. U.S. Marines with the 8th Engineer Support Battalion unload supplies from a
By the time they leave on Jan. 28, the 10 U.S. structural engineers sent to Haiti to assess the condition of buildings slightly damaged in the magnitude-7 earthquake will have done about 100 surveys. However, some 100,000 buildings still will need to be inspected so that the sound structures can be reoccupied, say local sources. Photo: Daniel O’neil, PADF High-end Oasis development, under construction, is undamaged, unlike an older completed building nearby (foreground). Photo: Eduardo Fierro, BFP Engineeers Inc. Light-metal roof of reinforcing-steel plant collapsed during the quake because it was not properly connected to the building’s reinforced-concrete columns. Related
The leaders of the U.S. earthquake response effort in Haiti say they expect it will be “several weeks” before the effort shifts from a first-response life- support mission to planning for recovery, but when it comes, that phase “will involve all the military and civilian subject-matter experts.” Slide Show Photo: AP/Wideworld An excavator clears rubble of the Electricite de Haiti building in Port-au-Prince. Image: Unosat/Meti&NASA 2009 Density of post-quake bridge, road blockages in Port-au-prince on Jan. 13, 2010 Related Links: Quake Was Too Much for Recent Disaster-Reduction Efforts But a week after the Jan. 12 quake, the answer to how
Located along a fault line, the capitol of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, was the heart of the island nation. Now the heart is broken and any attempt to restore the country must revolve around its rebuilding. Photo: AP /Julie Jacobson A man preaches for people to repent outside a cathedral Jan. 14, in Port au Prince. .“Port-au-Prince is Haiti, and Haiti is Port-au-Prince,” says Bryant C. Freeman, perhaps the leading expert on Haiti in the U.S. He says the city and the country were heading in the right direction in recent years as decades of dictatorial oppression and violence faded away under
The Jan. 12 quake that struck Haiti made a shambles of the cargo-handling facilities of the port of Port-au-Prince, a U.S. Coast Guard assessment team reported late Friday. The port, which faces the Caribbean Sea and the eastern tip of Cuba about 175 miles to the west, includes cranes, large berths, and warehouses. The Coast Guard and U.S. Navy are trying to see what will have to be done to get it back in service to assist in the delivery of aid. Photo: U.S. Coast Guard Damage to Port-au-Prince’s port is extensive. The team said five cargo cranes are damaged,
