At their annual meeting in Atlanta, GA on September 20, NCSEA announced the winners of the 2013 Excellence in Structural Engineering Awards. This awards program annually highlights some of the best examples of structural ingenuity throughout the world. Awards are divided into eight categories: four building categories which are separated based on construction cost, bridge or transportation structures, international structures, forensic-renovation-retrofit-rehabilitation structures and an “other” category which encompasses all types of non-building or bridge structures. In each category, up to three award winners were named with one project named the Outstanding Project. All structures must have been completed, or substantially completed, within the past three calendar years. …

Setting the Stage for Neighborhood Renewal

A community repertory theater organization developed the project to renovate historic Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland, revitalizing an abandoned property. Encompassing historic preservation, creative architectural design and structural engineering, construction craftsmanship, and good stewardship, the project created more than a modern performing arts venue. It contributed to positive neighborhood and economic renewal in Baltimore’s West Side arts district. …

Trimble Rockies Campus Positioned to Deliver Impressive Efficiencies, Innovation

Trimble Navigation is best known as a leader in positioning technologies that help the world’s mobile workforce build, harvest, map, plan, and survey everything from the Beijing National Stadium to the mineral mines of South Africa. So when company executives decided to build – rather than lease – new office space to support the over 500 engineering, marketing, and sales staff based in Westminster, Colorado, they understandably believed their positioning technologies could help optimize people, processes, and materials in the built environment. …

As described in the August edition of STRUCTURE^® magazine, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport opened the first stage of their automated transit system, PHX Sky Train™, on April 8, 2013. Thousands of passengers have already boarded the Sky Train and experienced the comfortable five minute ride from the 44^th Street Station through the East Economy Lot Station, over Taxiway “R” (more than 100 feet above Sky Harbor Blvd.), ending at Terminal 4. …

The Burnt House Road Bridge, a historic bridge set in the countryside of rural central Pennsylvania, was in need of an update – and it needed it quickly. After being closed to traffic in 2009 following an underwater inspection that revealed undermining of the foundations, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) needed a solution that would quickly bring the bridge back into operation for the nearly 2,100 cars that cross the bridge on a daily basis. …

Evaluating the Structural Performance of Unreinforced Monumental Masonry Structures

Even when they are intact, monumental historic masonry structures – including structural systems such as towers, domes, arches, tunnels, buttresses, and vaults – are complex structural systems whose behavior is difficult to quantify using only simple analytical methods. Some of the parameters that complicate the analysis approach are the indeterminate behavior of large interconnected systems, intractable boundary conditions, the variability of materials, direction-dependent strength properties of masonry, and deterioration. When cracks occur, structural behavior changes as displacements take place, and loads are redistributed throughout the structure. …

The First Precast Open Box Girders for Phoenix and Arizona

This is the second in a series of articles about the components of the new PHX Sky Train™ in Phoenix, Arizona. Part 1 of the series was published in the July 2013 issue of STRUCTURE magazine, and Part 3 will appear in an upcoming issue. …

Software Companies Address Construction Rise with Innovations, Interoperability,  Better Graphics and Mobile Apps

As the economy improves and more construction projects get underway, software developers are meeting the increasing number of projects with new products and services, as well as updating current offerings. Software companies are also responding to the needs and interests of their customers: a need to continue to run lean and interests in interoperability, more sophisticated graphics, flexibility and mobile apps. …

Structural Engineer’s Active Role in an IPD Project with Lean and BIM Components

The Sutter Health Eden Medical Center (SHEMC) project in Castro Valley, California, set a new standard for structural engineers to play an active and significant role in a successful Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) project, enhanced with Lean practices and Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies. …

Design for Severe Earthquake and Deep Riverbed Scour

One of the greatest challenges to long-span bridge engineering is the forces of nature. Recent catastrophic events around the world reinforce the fact that nature can be destructive to infrastructure. At the Padma Bridge site in Bangladesh, AECOM used state-of-the-art technology and innovative disaster prevention and mitigation solutions to tackle some severe challenges. …