Within a few seconds in mid-December, engineers at a new research facility in Vicksburg, Miss., sealed a 2,000-cu-ft-per-second torrent of water pouring through a 40-ft-wide, eight-ft-deep levee breach using a 100-ft-long, 15-ft-dia., air- and water-filled fabric tube rolling in the stream. Photo: Angelle Bergeron For ENR Full-scale trials of a 100-ft-long levee plug at a new test facility in Vicksburg show technology and techniques for rapidly sealing levee breaches are ready for business, but funds are lacking. Graphic: Courtesy ERDC A 2.2-million-gal source pool and collapsible weir on the test basin simulate a breach. Related Links: Ready To Roll: Levee
MHTN Architects Inc. of Salt Lake City is defined by its mission statement: People + Collaboration + Innovation = Extraordinary Environments. Photo By Sohm Photografx The 222 S. Main Office Building opened in December 2009 and recently earned LEED certification from the USGBC. Photo By Sohm Photografx Dennis Cecchini, MHTN CEO, left, and Peggy McDonough, MHTN president, are part of the triumvirate formed to lead the firm into the future. The more than 80-year-old, 60-person firm has a longstanding reputation for performance and dedication to client service on commercial, higher education, K-12 education, mixed-use, government, sustainable design and landscape projects.
When CooverClark & Associates designed the $34-million Wyoming Air National Guard’s new aviation support facility in Cheyenne, the Denver-based firm married functionality, technology and energy efficiency with a lodge feel that WANG hopes will enhance recruitment/retention and provide a comfortable home to support training and aircraft maintenance operations. Photo BY Mike Rogers The 98,000-sq-ft aviation maintenance facility provides space for the Navy reserve, active-duty Air Force and reserve Air Force and Army and includes a hangar, administration building and pumphouse. Photo By Mike Rogers Design for the building created a western lodge feel, with a rustic stone-and-timber interior that mimics
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors are setting a record for achieving the fastest gain in consolidation and strength on earthen levees—a mere 60 to 90 days, compared with 10 to 11 years—by using an intricate design that layers a sand blanket, geotextile fabrics, rock and wick drains to evacuate moisture from marshy soils. “Something of this major import, of this scope, is rare, and we are using unique and unusual means to achieve those goals,” says Al Naomi, program manager, URS Corp., San Francisco. URS performed geotechnical design and developed plans and specifications for the levee
Contractors can anticipate a flurry of projects over the next year as the Texas Dept. of Rural Affairs (TDRA) awards $1.5 billion in public projects to rebuild areas hit hard by hurricanes Dolly and Ike. In November 2008 Congress approved $3 billion in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for damages caused in Texas by Dolly and Ike. The Texas Dept. of Housing and Community Affairs is overseeing administration of the housing reconstruction portion, and TDRA is handling the other half, says Charlie Stone, TDRA’s executive director. “We made allocations according to
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ $14.6-billion drive to bring New Orleans’ hurricane defenses to 100-year levels of protection by June 2011 could fundamentally change the way U.S. civil-works projects are funded and delivered, project leaders say. + Image + Image The Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System, or HSDRRS, is the largest civil-works construction program in Corps history. It was launched in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Already, on the fifth anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and with a year’s construction yet to go, the works now in place provide
The next time there is an oil-spill disaster, emergency response and remediation contractors will have a new generation of tools, thanks in part to techniques and equipment deployed after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon drill-ship explosion. ISAKSON The disaster released an estimated 4.9 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico during the ensuing 86 days. Full cleanup may take years. In a briefing on Aug. 9, Adm. Thad Allen, national incident commander for the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill, said that with a cap on the well apparently holding, the response now is shifting from source control to dealing
The Louisiana State Police say a driver hauling a 134-ft-long 78-in.-deep, pre-stressed bulb-T girder was going too fast and his load was not properly secured when it fell off a truck in New Orleans, La., on June 22. There were no injuries. The driver was fined $100. Still Frames From Louisiana State Police Video Related Links: VIDEO: Girder Transport Accident “The load came undone, so it was not secured properly,” says State Police spokesman Lt. Doug Cain. “Whether that is attributed totally to speed or tie downs, I don’t think we’ll ever know.” That might have been the end of
Despite the ongoing construction slump, there is always demand for a more efficient and cost-effective building solution. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" A Florida-based builder of concrete homes and other structures thinks it has such an innovation in its modular concrete building system that it is utilizing throughout South Florida and the Caribbean, including Haiti. After some noteworthy recent successes in Palm Beach County, the Keys and pre-earthquake Haiti, officials with Royal Concrete Concepts of West Palm Beach are pitching their modular system as a building solution that can be shipped and constructed quickly almost anywhere. �Our products combined
Before barging and lifting two halves of a 2,650-ton truss assembly for the superstructure of the $1.2 billion Huey P. Long Bridge widening, the contractor wanted to have a way to monitor how the steel was reacting to all of the jostling. MTI, a joint venture of Massman Construction Co., Kansas City, Mo., Traylor Bros. Inc., Evansville, Ind. and IHI Inc., New York, NY, hired Applied Geomechanics Inc. San Francisco to develop a monitoring system that would keep the contractor apprised of stresses to the truss in real time. “As they lift, think of two parallel pieces of paper,” says