A recent study concluded that three of four recently constructed segments of a new port facility in Anchorage, Alaska were not constructed correctly and even if they were, are vulnerable to liquefaction related damage during an earthquake. The $2.2M study was performed by CH2M Hill for the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Maritime Commission. A draft was issued in November, and was recently approved by Anchorage’s Geotechnical Advisory Commision and the final version of the report addressing the Commission’s comments should be soon to follow. CH2M Hill is conducting an additional $500K of work to lay out options. [Source: Alaska Journal of Commerce. Image: Mark Meyer Photography]
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The Claremont Tunnel – Designed to Survive Fault Rupture on the Hayward Fault
The Claremont tunnel beneath the Berkeley Hills on the east side of Oakland is a water supply tunnel that serves over 800,000 customers in Richmond, Oakland, San Leandro and neighboring communities. One of the unique things about the tunnel is that it crosses the active Hayward Fault. Most of the time when you talk about designing for earthquakes you’re talking about designing to withstand the seismic forces. In this case, the designers needed the water transmission tunnel to withstand up to 7.5-ft of offset due to fault slip and still maintain a minimum level of service. (Photo credit: Sue Bednarz, Jacobs Associates, Inc. by way of Civil Engineering Magazine)
This post describes the relatively recent Claremont Tunnel Seismic Upgrade Project as reported in Civil Engineering Magazine (May 2008, v. 78, no. 5, pp 58-63, 96-97).