• Thirteen Georgia dams could be reclassified as high risk

    The number of dams designated high risk under Georgia’s Safe Dams Act could more than double in two counties in the state, but a backlog in state enforcement because of budget cuts could drag the reclassification process out years longer than scheduled

  • Artificial tornadoes created to test Japanese homes

    Japan suffers from many natural disasters, and over the past few years the number of tornados hitting the country has been on the rise; researchers have built a tornado simulator which can generate maximum wind velocity of 15 to 20 meters per second, enough to simulate an F3-size storm; on Japan’s Fujita Scale, an F3 storm is one powerful enough to uproot large trees, lift and hurl cars, knock down walls, and destroy steel-frame structures

  • LIDAR technology helps to map landslides

    Researchers use Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) to identify and accurately measure changes in coastal features following a catastrophic series of landslides that occurred in New Zealand in 2005; the findings are important for assessing geological hazards and reducing the dangers to human settlements

  • Panama Canal is due a big earthquake

    The Panama Canal is at greater risk of a catastrophic earthquake than previously assumed, a seismological survey of faults around the canal has warned; the survey estimate that quakes occur every 300 to 900 years. The most recent one was in 1621, so another could happen at any time

  • Minneapolis bridge collapse spawning new bridge research

    Oregon State University developed a new system to analyze the connections that hold major bridge members together; the work also brings focus to a little-understood aspect of bridge safety — that most failures are caused by connections, not the girders and beams they connect, as many people had assumed. The issues involved are a concern with thousands of bridges worth trillions of dollars in many nations

  • Bacteria knit together cracked concrete

    Students at Newcastle University genetically modified a microbe, programming it to swim down fine cracks in the concrete; once at the bottom, it produces a mixture of calcium carbonate and a bacterial glue which combine with the filamentous bacterial cells to “knit” the building back together

  • Purdue engineers test effects of fire on steel structures

    Building fires may reach temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius, or more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit; at that temperature, exposed steel would take about twenty-five minutes to lose about 60 percent of its strength and stiffness; Purdue researchers experiment with ways to make steel more fire-resistant

  • GWU earthquake simulator helps engineering prepare for the real thing

    George Washington University laboratory’s “shake table” — a $1 million, 10-by-10-foot metal structure that moves in six directions — replicates earthquakes and allows engineering students to test construction materials to see how they hold up under tremors of varying strength

  • New Orleans levee committee uneasy with Corps of Engineers modeling

    The Army Corps of Engineers uses complex computer models for hazard analysis calculations on which billions of dollars worth of repairs and improvements to the federal hurricane levee system are being based; the members of the regional levee commission want their own expert to scrutinize these computer models

  • U.K.'s government unveils £200 billion National Infrastructure Plan

    David Cameron announces infrastructure plan to rebuild the economy a week after sweeping government cuts; the plan calls for a government commitment of over £40 billion directed to infrastructure projects, including a Green Investment Bank that provides up to £1 billion toward a commercial scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects; £30 billion for transportation, including a high speed rail network, maintenance, and investment in local roads and rail and funding towards the Network Rail

  • Smog-eating concrete for Missouri highways

    Missouri highway is paved with smog-eating concrete; the concrete contains an active ingredient that captures pollution and UV light from the sun breaks it down into harmless chemicals

  • New technology weighs trucks while trucks are in motion

    Israeli researchers develop a method to detect overloaded trucks quickly and efficiently — while the trucks are in motion; the system, which has potential for use in law enforcement, infrastructure maintenance monitoring, and road and bridge design and planning

  • U.K. railways threatened by changes in rainfall patterns

    Some of the U.K.’s railway infrastructure was built in the nineteenth century on unprepared foundations, before engineers understood soil mechanics; rail embankments are structures made of soil and rock, which are always be affected by climate — particularly rainfall patterns

  • High performance materials for the tunnel of the century

    On 15 October Swiss engineers finished their work on the Gotthard Tunnel — longest rail tunnel in the world; the 57-km (35.4-mile) high-speed rail link, which will open in 2017, will form the lynchpin of a new rail network between northern and southeastern Europe and help ease congestion and pollution in the Swiss Alps

  • America's latest wonder: Hoover Dam companion bridge

    After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. feared a terrorist with a truck bomb could attack the Hoover Dam, potentially flooding vast areas and disrupting water and power supplies to several states; semi-trucks were banned from bridge, forced to take route to Las Vegas that is more than forty miles longer; new 1,900-foot-long structure will reroutes traffic off of the two-lane road atop the dam, will improve traffic in the region, and help protect the dam from terrorist threats; it is the seventh highest bridge in the world and it is held up by the longest arch in the Western Hemisphere