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New Orleans, Louisiana
Constructed 1875-1879
"Eads had to succeed in the face of conventional wisdom which doomed him to disaster. Entrenched authorities not only completely dismissed his theories, but pointed to the indifferent European experiences with what he proposed."
- ASCE Landmark Nomination Proposal, 1982
The mighty Mississippi River has long been a valuable lifeline for the country's transportation and commerce. In the late 1800s, though, the mouth of the ever-changing Mississippi was silting up, creating areas as shallow as eight feet. Eads South Pass Navigation Works opened a channel at the mouth of the Mississippi River that allowed large boats easy access to the Port of New Orleans.
James Buchanan Eads created a self-scouring channel through the South Pass by constructing wing dikes, perpendicular to current flow, which forced the current into a narrower cross-section. The current scoured the river bottom, pushing the silt far out into the deep Gulf waters. This created a nearly permanent channel that required only periodic dredging to maintain navigability.
The channel is no longer maintained for deep-draft traffic due to a decline in maritime shipping. But the principles which guided construction on the South Pass made possible the high performance of the Southwest Pass, currently the predominant seaward approach to the ports of New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Facts
- A T-dam at the head of the South Pass deepened the channel. He used wing dikes, perpendicular to current flow, to force the current into a narrower cross section, thus scouring the channel more completely.
- Sill dams of horizontal timber were placed at the mouth of the river to force the current to further scour the channel.
- Once pilings had been driven, mattresses of interwoven willow branches were submerged and attached to the pilings. Then alternating layers of broken stone and willow mattresses formed the base upon which a railroad line was constructed.
- Initially, the project was completed with funds furnished by Eads and a group of investors. Only if the design succeeded would Congress provide reimbursement.
For more information on civil engineering history, go to www.asce.org/history.
🇳🇱 Terwijl op de achtergrond de arm van de kraan de betonstort leidt, wordt op de voorgrond de cementwagen gereinigd na zijn bijdrage aan de fundering van de nieuwe school van OBC Bemmel.
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🇬🇧 In the background, the crane arm positions the concrete hose for pouring, while in the foreground the cement truck is being cleaned after contributing to the foundation of the new OBC Bemmel school.
Travaux de renouvellement du site propre du trolley à Nancy dans le cadre des aménagements pour la ligne 1 du trolley.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)
Ville : Nancy (54000)
Quartier : Nancy Ouest
Adresse : avenue du XXᵉ Corps
St. Louis, Missouri
Completed 1874
In the decade following the Civil War, the Mississippi River began to lose its standing as the primary transport artery in the Midwest. Railroads were taking over, and Chicago was rapidly becoming the center of Midwestern commerce. The Eads Bridge was the first major railroad link over the Mississippi, constructed by the city of St. Louis in an attempt to maintain its dominance as a regional commercial hub.
The bridge's designer and builder, James Buchanan Eads, faced unbelievable challenges: political and financial wrangles; shipwrecks, ice storms, and tornadoes; and 14 men dead from caisson disease. Seven years and 7 million dollars after construction began, the bridge opened, carrying fifteen 50-ton locomotives loaded with coal, water, and daredevil passengers. The bridge continues to carry traffic across the Mississippi River today.
Resources
Howard S. Miller and Quinta Scott, The Eads Bridge, University of Missouri Press, 2nd Ed.1999
For more information on civil engineering history, go to www.asce.org/history.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Completed in 1901
Philadelphia City Hall was the largest masonry load-bearing wall building in the world at the time of its completion in 1901, stood as the tallest occupied building in the United States until 1909, and still is the largest city hall in the United States. The building covers 4½ acres, originally contained 634 rooms with over 1 million square feet of space, and with its tower and statue of William Penn rises a total of 548 feet above the ground. The construction of Philadelphia City Hall began in 1872 and was completed in 1901. The bill providing for the erection of a new city hall passed both branches of the Pennsylvania State legislature in early April 1860, and the voters of Philadelphia selected Penn Square as the site of City Hall on October 11, 1870. The building was designed in the Second-Empire Mode of French Renaissance Revival architectural style by architect John McArthur, Jr. with the assistance of Thomas U. Walter, John Ord, and W. Bleddyn Powell.
The walls are brick, faced with white marble, and rise to a height of 337 feet above the ground. Not including the statue of William Penn, the tower rose 173 feet above the top of the building's masonry construction. The building measures 486 feet by 470 feet and rises seven stories high. The 18-foot 3-inch high basement story was constructed of white granite blocks that weigh from two to five tons and form walls up to 22-feet thick. The foundations of the tower rest on a bed of concrete 100 feet square and 8 feet 6 inches thick. The Tacony Iron and Metal Company hired civil engineer C.R. (Carl Robert) Grimm, M. ASCE to design the upper wrought-iron frame, metal-clad portion of the tower, which surmounted the masonry tower and supported the 37-foot-tall, 27-ton bronze statue of William Penn. The tower was designed to carry its dead load along with live loads on three floors and the balcony of 100 lb/ft2 and horizontal wind loads of 50 lb/ft2. The octagonal-prism tower designed by C.R. Grimm consisted of wrought-iron framework that supported the cast iron outer plates, which were electo-plated with copper and then covered with a finish coat of aluminum. The tower's pins and anchor bolts were steel.
Resources
U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Nomination, dated August 11, 1976.
Grimm, C.R., "The Tower of the New City Hall at Philadelphia, Pa.", ASCE Transactions, Paper No. 694, Vol. XXXI, March 1894.
For more information on civil engineering history, go to www.asce.org/history.
In a special summer UrbanPlan Scholars program, four teams presented their proposals for a six-acre parcel next to UH West Oahu. They had to address zoning requirements, affordable housing/workforce housing, rail/transit issues, agriculture, and energy.
UrbanPlan is a global competition run by the international Urban Land Institute. Hawaii schools have taken top honors in the global competition two years in a row, including Iolani School last month, and Iolani and Kalani two years ago.
Teams were made up of local high school students from Iolani, Kalani, LeJardin, MidPac, Punahou, and St. Andrews.
They conducted outreach to stakeholders and residents in West Oahu and found affordable housing to be the number one community need.
Ideas ranged from rooftop greenhouses and beekeeping to fully solar-powered facilities to integrating UHWO student and campus life.
Judges included Bob Harrison (FHB), Duff Janus (ASB), Brennon Morioka (UH), Mike Gabbard (Senate), Jim Houchens (Mitre), and Alana Kobayashi.
Bernice Glenn Bowers helped them plan for future high-tech industry in the area, doubled the size of the cash prize to $1,500.
Cody, Wyoming
Constructed 1904-1910
From what was once anthill, buffalo skull, cactus, and sagebrush-dotted flats, irrigation has transformed the project area into a lush, productive landscape.
- Gilbert Stamm, Commissioner of Reclamation, 1973
The Buffalo Bill Dam, known as the Shoshone Dam until 1946, was the first mass concrete dam in America. At nearly 325 feet high, it was also the tallest dam in the world at the time of completion.
This was one of the first arch dams in the U.S. to be designed using a mathematical method of analysis. For the Buffalo Bill Dam, consulting engineer Edgar Wheeler considered changing water surface elevations, variation in temperature and deflection issues. This allowed him to determine the distribution of loads both horizontally and vertically. This was the forerunner of the trial-load method of arch dam stress analysis which is the predecessor of today's computerized systems.
The dam is a gravity-arch concrete structure with a radius of 150 feet and a crest length of 200 feet. Twenty-five percent of the dam is composed of hand-placed rocks, weighing 25 to 200 pounds each.
Facts
- Concrete was placed and cured despite below-zero temperatures, requiring steam fittings to carry heat to the construction site.
- To excavate the dam abutments on the sheer walls of the canyon, workmen risked their lives, hanging from spider lines connected to cableway towers.
- Manpower was limited on the sparsely populated frontier. Contractors and laborers had to be imported and trained.
- Thousands of tons of materials had to be delivered to the site over the precipitous canyon road.
For more information on civil engineering history, go to www.asce.org/history.
These giant five ton concrete shapes are reminiscent of various other things.. From this side it resembles the shape of an oil well. Using a little imagination of course.
The City of Hoover has seen enormous growth in its sports programs over the past 10 years and needed a new complex that would fulfill their existing needs, allow for growth and give the City the ability to create new revenue streams and take advantage of sports tourism by hosting large tournament events. Hoover had not built any new athletic facilities in 15 years. At the same time the City’s sports participation had increased by multiples of 200% - 500% depending on the sport. The growth was caused by increases in both youth and adult sports leagues, as well as the relatively recent popularity of additional sports.
The multi-purpose Finley Center, which connects to the existing Hoover Met baseball stadium with a covered walkway, is able to accommodate a full-size football or soccer field, nine regulation-size basketball courts, 12 regulation-size volleyball courts or six indoor tennis courts. It can also seat 2,400 for banquets and 5,000 for events with general seating, such as a graduation ceremony or concert. Additional features of the indoor facility include a recreational walking track suspended 14 feet in the air, an athletic training and rehab center, and a food court.
The Finley Center sits on a 120 acre site that GMC master planned and includes fields for soccer, lacrosse, football, baseball and softball, tennis courts, a play ground walking track and splash pad.
Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood (GMC) provided master planning, architecture, interior design, civil engineering, construction materials testing, and environmental engineering services for this project.
In a special summer UrbanPlan Scholars program, four teams presented their proposals for a six-acre parcel next to UH West Oahu. They had to address zoning requirements, affordable housing/workforce housing, rail/transit issues, agriculture, and energy.
UrbanPlan is a global competition run by the international Urban Land Institute. Hawaii schools have taken top honors in the global competition two years in a row, including Iolani School last month, and Iolani and Kalani two years ago.
Teams were made up of local high school students from Iolani, Kalani, LeJardin, MidPac, Punahou, and St. Andrews.
They conducted outreach to stakeholders and residents in West Oahu and found affordable housing to be the number one community need.
Ideas ranged from rooftop greenhouses and beekeeping to fully solar-powered facilities to integrating UHWO student and campus life.
Judges included Bob Harrison (FHB), Duff Janus (ASB), Brennon Morioka (UH), Mike Gabbard (Senate), Jim Houchens (Mitre), and Alana Kobayashi.
Bernice Glenn Bowers helped them plan for future high-tech industry in the area, doubled the size of the cash prize to $1,500.
In a special summer UrbanPlan Scholars program, four teams presented their proposals for a six-acre parcel next to UH West Oahu. They had to address zoning requirements, affordable housing/workforce housing, rail/transit issues, agriculture, and energy.
UrbanPlan is a global competition run by the international Urban Land Institute. Hawaii schools have taken top honors in the global competition two years in a row, including Iolani School last month, and Iolani and Kalani two years ago.
Teams were made up of local high school students from Iolani, Kalani, LeJardin, MidPac, Punahou, and St. Andrews.
They conducted outreach to stakeholders and residents in West Oahu and found affordable housing to be the number one community need.
Ideas ranged from rooftop greenhouses and beekeeping to fully solar-powered facilities to integrating UHWO student and campus life.
Judges included Bob Harrison (FHB), Duff Janus (ASB), Brennon Morioka (UH), Mike Gabbard (Senate), Jim Houchens (Mitre), and Alana Kobayashi.
Bernice Glenn Bowers helped them plan for future high-tech industry in the area, doubled the size of the cash prize to $1,500.