A radar survey of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings hopes to find some of the missing tombs of Egyptian Queens and Pharaohs that have so far eluded archaeologists. Distinguishing natural faults and other geologic features from potential tombs is one challenge. The article also describes how some other interesting discoveries have been made, including an ancient flood control system that prevented the tombs from being flooded, but rapidly fell into disrepair. [Source: Livescience. Image: Livescience]
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Foundations and Geotechnical Engineering for the Burj Dubai – World’s Tallest Building
The Burj Dubai Tower has recently reached it’s final height of 818m (2,684-ft or almost exactly 1/2 a mile!). The foundation system for the Burj Dubai is comprised of 192 bored piles (drilled shafts in my practice) 1.5-m (approximately 5-ft) in diameter and approximately 50-m deep (164-ft). A 3.7-m (12-ft) thick raft foundation sits on top of the piles under the full footprint of the structure. (Image from BurjDubaiSkyscraper.com)
The geotechnical investigation for the Burj Dubai (now to be known as Burj Khalifa after the UAE President) is described in detail in a paper by the geotechnical engineer of record, Grahame Bunce of Hyder Consulting (UK) and the independent technical reviewer for the geotechnical design, Harry G. Poulos of Coffey Geotechnics. Click through for the link to the paper and more details. […]