Articles by rockman

Project Related

Remediation begins on Center Hill Dam, Tenn.

June 3, 2008 rockman Comments Off on Remediation begins on Center Hill Dam, Tenn.

LANCASTER — Months of explosive blasting are expected to begin at the site of Center Hill Dam next week as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepares to begin construction work at the aging dam in Lancaster.

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"The blasting will be to excavate a platform for construction, about 40 feet wide and will look similar to a road cut through a hill," [Corps Project Manager Linda Adcock] said. "Just the nature of how we grout, and moving equipment back and forth on the current slopes, which are as much as 40 percent and greater, is just really difficult. So for these reasons, for safety, quality, the accuracy and the consistency of the drill holes are much better done from a platform, they proposed this road cut type of a platform."

The drilling is for grouting remediation of the dam foundation. Story from Herald-Citizen, Cookeville, Tennessee.

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Failures

Drilled shaft rig falls into hole – Iowa

June 3, 2008 rockman Comments Off on Drilled shaft rig falls into hole – Iowa

On May 15 a drilled shaft rig operated by Mid America Drilling Corp was nearly swallowed by the 9-ft diameter hole it was drilling for a cell tower foundation near Harlan, Iowa. Fortunately nobody was injured and the truck did not suffer any significant damage.

In Arizona, the standard of practice is to use a temporary surface casing to prevent dangerous failures like that. I once saw pictures of a drilling contractor superindendent almost get sucked into a collapsing shaft, even with the temporary casing. Pretty scary stuff. Source: Harlan Tribune. (Photo by Samantha Bruck) 

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Project Related

New Tunnel Project In Peru Through Andes

May 30, 2008 rockman 13

From ENR:

In the mountains of Peru a tunnel-boring machine named “Pacha Mama” is grinding through the heart of the Andes under rock as deep as 6,890 ft. It is carving away at a 20.2-kilometer-long tunnel through the South American Continental Divide to deliver water to arid coastal farmland.

This is a really interesting project, known as the Los Olmos project, and a nice little article. Normally for a civil tunnel project you drill geotechnical holes beforehand to know what kind of material you’re dealing with. In this case, because of the depth, they don’t have that luxury, so all decisions will be made on the fly. The depth of the tunnel creates some very challenging rock mechanics and logistics problems as well! (Illustration by Odebrecht)

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Software Updates

Embeded Google Earth in Web Pages

May 30, 2008 rockman Comments Off on Embeded Google Earth in Web Pages

Google has just released an API, or application programmer’s interface for Google Earth that allows website developers to embed a google earth application in any website. Users will have to have Google Earth installed on their systems and they will need a plugin which aside from a browser restart, installs rather painlessly. So now instead of seeing a Google map embedded on a web page, you will start seeing an instance of Google Earth so you can pan around in 3D. Pretty Cool. Check out an example and some video from Google after the break.

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Geologic Hazards

Sidoarjo Mud Volcano 2 year Anniversary

May 30, 2008 rockman Comments Off on Sidoarjo Mud Volcano 2 year Anniversary

On May 29, 2006, the Sidoarjo mud volcano began erupting between 7,000 and 150,000 cubic meters of mud per day and it presently has no signs of stopping. A new report by scientists from Indonesia’s Institute of Technology Bandung and the UK University of Durham set to be published in the journal GSA Today confirms the early UN Report that an oil drilling rig was the cause of the disaster that has displaced an estimated 30,000 people. The report also indicates that the volcano, now named Lusi, could potentially collapse by as much as 146 meters (why not round that huh?). They say that the weight of the mud has already caused ground subsidence on the order of 14 meters near the center.

Images show the source of the mud flow, before and after. Acquired and processed by CRISP, National University of Singapore IKONOS image © CRISP 2004

Reuters story by way of Geology.com. See the University of Durham news release also. For a summary of the first year and the formation of the volcano, see my original post on the topic.

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Geologic Hazards

Pittsburgh Area Has 49 Active Landslides

May 21, 2008 rockman Comments Off on Pittsburgh Area Has 49 Active Landslides

The Pittsburgh area has  49 active landslides or retaining wall failures in 29 neighborhoods according to a Pittsburgh Public Works Department survey. The estimated cost to fix 24 of those issues effecting public land is $7.4 million, which the City doesn’t have. Story source: Pittsburgh Live by way of Geology.com. (Map by BOB NEWELL/TRIBUNE-REVIEW)

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Geologic Hazards

Sichuan Earthquake Update

May 21, 2008 rockman Comments Off on Sichuan Earthquake Update

[Updated May 30, 2008] I forgot to publish this post to the front page, whoops! The two links still have excellent information. In particular, Dave’s Landslide Blog has coverage of the many landslide lakes and the efforts to breach some of them. [/Update]

The latest numbers according to AFP, Worldwide News Agency, is 71,000 dead, missing or buried and over 5 million homeless. There were many victims that were buried by landslides and rockfall. In the past few days 200 rescue workers have been buried by mudslides.

For more coverage on landslides related to the earthquake, I recommend Dave’s Landslide Blog. Geology.com also has very comprehensive coverage as well. (AFP Photo)

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Miscellaneous

Dam Safety News Highlights

May 21, 2008 rockman Comments Off on Dam Safety News Highlights

The Association of State Dam Safety Officials publishes monthly news items related to levee and dam safety and associated projects. Their April news items were just published this week and there are several interesting items. Read on for more info.

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Articles

VBA and Excel for Engineers and Scientists – Part 2

May 20, 2008 rockman 1

In this long awaited second article in the series, I will dive into the meat of the VBA programming language, including code containers, data types, variables, math operators, built-in functions, flow control, and even debugging.. In the end, you should be able to code some fairly complex things including custom worksheet functions that you can use in your spreadsheet just like a regular formula. Also in this article I give you a sample spreadsheet with some useful utilities that you can use right away.

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