Month: August 2011
COMSOL Releases Geomechanics Module – Advances into Soil and Rock Mechanics Simulations
Newest addition to the COMSOL Multiphysics® product suite targets geotechnical applications within oil & gas and civil engineering with tailored material models to study plasticity, deformation, and failure of soils and rocks as well as their interaction with concrete and man-made structures.
BURLINGTON, MA (August 18, 2011) — COMSOL, Inc., today introduced the Geomechanics Module, enabling the fast-growing community of COMSOL Multiphysics users to harness its powerful simulation environment for geotechnical and civil-engineering applications such as slope stability evaluation and failure prediction of tunnels, retaining structures, and excavations. The Geomechanics Module provides tailored interfaces for studying plasticity, deformation, and failure of soils and rocks, as well as their interaction with concrete and human-made structures. The Module, which comes with a variety of material models for soils, builds off of the Structural Mechanics Module add-on for the company’s flagship simulation software, COMSOL Multiphysics, and offers the ability to combine analyses with all other COMSOL modules seamlessly. [Editor] Click through for the rest of the press release. [/Editor]
Sustainability in Geotechnical Engineering
As the authors of the above-titled report note, the ecosystem and the built environment are inextricably linked, and understanding the interdependence of the two is the key to sustainability in geotechnical engineering, and all civil engineering. Although I am curious how they came to this conclusion, they state that geotechnical engineering is "the most resource intensive of all the civil engineering disciplines." Assuming they are correct, this is a sobering thought for all of us as designers. [Editor] Click through for more on sustainability in geotechnical engineering. [/Editor]
Kingdom Tower: World’s Newest Tallest Building for 2016
The newly announced Kingdom Tower is slated to be the World’s tallest when it is completed in 2016 in Jeddah, Saudia Arabia. Part of the $20B Kingdom City development, the tower will stand 3,280 feet tall and cost $1.2B itself. The architect is Adrian Smith who was also the lead architect on the current tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE. You can see from the rendering (and others in the article) that the Kingdom Tower structure has a similar triangular footprint compared to the Burj Khalifa.
There is an excellent discussion of the geotechnical challenges, and really a synopsis of the entire foundation design process for the Kingdom Tower in the article from George Leventis, President of Langan International which is providing the geotechnical design… [Editor] Read on for more info on the foundations for the Kingdom Tower [/Editor]
Developing Production Pile Driving Criteria from Test Pile Data
From the report summary: Although exploratory borings and engineering studies during design are an integral part of foundation engineering, the axial resistance of a driven pile foundation is ultimately determined by the criteria used to […]
Ever get that sinkhole feeling?
It takes planning and good leadership to decide on an effective solution to problems associated with a building asset. Recently, a large wholesale warehouse facility in Cincinnati began to experience large sinkholes across a significant portion of their customer parking lot. Unable to determine the problem at that time, store management was forced to close a portion of the parking lot, inconveniencing their customers. This particular parking lot is unusual in that a drainage system is located directly under the parking lot, consisting of a network of pipes spanning 250 feet in length and 12” in diameter. Joint separations in the underground drainage piping had caused enough soil erosion to create sinkholes in the asphalt. Engineers were concerned that other unknown sinkholes could cave in anytime, resulting in further costly damage, and potentially posing safety hazards to customers.
[Editor] Click through for the rest of the article. [/Editor]
Seattle tunnel will go under 158 buildings
The tunnel replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct (SR-99) will pass beneath 158 existing structures requiring an extensive program of vibration and settlement monitoring as well as some remediation. Of the 158 buildings, WSDOT identified 20 […]
Weekend CUP for August 16, 2011
Millions of dollars worth of Brightwater project material deemed unusable – Source: NWCN.com Agile Frameworks, LLC. – Management and IT Consulting, SaaS and Managed Services for AEC / ACEC / ASFE Project-Based Businesses Devastating landslides […]
Singapore digs deep to be petro hub
On the island nation of Singapore land is at a premium, so a planned petrochemical storage facility is being constructed 150 meters under the sea floor. The article does not give the total underground storage […]
Shoring retaining wall failure in Virginia prompts apartment building evacuation
On Sunday evening, a soldier pile lagging wall shoring system failed at the Sedona & Slate residential development construction site in Rosslyn, Virginia (Arlington County). There were no reported injuries, but an adjacent apartment building was evacuated as a precaution and a nearby street is closed to traffic. Click through for a video that shows some additional views of the damage. The scale of the wall is apparent when you see the shots with workers putting braces near the bottom of the wall. I’m guessing the rakers shown in this image were added monday to attempt to stabilize the wall, but that’s just speculation at this point. Image: MyFoxDC.com