A recent case study in the Journal of Composites for Construction by authors Enrique del Rey Castillo, Ph.D. A.M.ASCE; Rhys Rogers, Ph.D.; Natalia Uran; and Marc Stewart, examines the Mohaka Township Bridge in New Zealand, which measures almost 784 feet in length, and consists of two abutments and 13 piers, made entirely of reinforced concrete. Engineers were battling stress cracking and corrosion, which compromised the durability of the structure.

“Seismic Strengthening of the Mohaka Township Concrete Bridge with FRP Fabric and FRP Spike Anchors: Case Study in New Zealand” outlines the process of inspections and assessments to identify the key areas of concern, and steps taken to repair and strengthen the bridge. Learn more about this study, and how it can help for future concrete bridge maintenance. To see the results, read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CC.1943-5614.0001144

Abstract

The Mohaka Township, New Zealand, reinforced concrete bridge was designed in 1958, measuring 239 m long and divided into 14 spans, each 17.1 m long. The piers are doubly reinforced concrete walls over a pile cap with 12 piles. Four prestressed T-beams and a singly reinforced deck form the superstructure. All individual structural members were deemed to comply with current standards, with the main issue being the connection between substructure and superstructure. The integral connection did not have enough reinforcement bars to resist lateral and rotational movement of the girders, resulting in significant cracking at the beams’ ends. A solution was devised to release those movements by physically separating the beams and the pier cap and installing an elastomeric bearing. However, the new detailing required an enlarged pier cap, which in turn increased the lever arm and the moment demand on the pier cap—from both traffic loads and seismic loads. Vertical layers of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) were bonded on the face of the wall piers, anchored at the top and bottom using FRP spike anchors. The capacity of the new pier was calculated using section analysis, but no method was available at the time to design the anchors, which were grossly oversized. More current research enables this design, which would result in significant savings in materials and labor. An innovative method using metallic U-tubes was used to try to minimize drilling through concrete members, but it was not satisfactory, owing to constructability.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CC.1943-5614.0001144

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Instead, Fisher, who also is the director of the university’s Minnesota Design Center, sees a future in which autonomous vehicles first briefly share the roads with human-driven vehicles and then inevitably replace those traditional cars and trucks entirely. As a result of that self-driving scenario, the road itself will also change, Fisher says. That’s because AVs are, simply put, better drivers — or at least more precise drivers.

When humans drive cars and trucks, they tend to “wander across the road surface,” shifting a little to the right or left within their lane as they travel along, Fisher says. But AVs, guided by GPS and other navigational aids, follow and maintain a much more precise path, meaning that each AV will drive over the same parts of road surfaces on every trip.

Unfortunately, such precision can lead to repetitive wear damage to a road surface, especially on gravel and asphalt roads, Fisher notes. This was evident in a 2018 pilot project conducted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation using an autonomous bus that left visible ruts in the roads it drove on, caused by the repetitive wheel path tracks of the bus as it followed a programmed route, Fisher explains.

A multidisciplinary team at the University of Minnesota — including the Minnesota Design Center, the College of Science and Engineering, and the School of Public Affairs — is researching how shared AVs will affect community health, equity, livability, and prosperity. This research is being funded by a three-year, $1.75 million grant from the National Science Foundation as part of the NSF’s Smart & Connected Communities grant program.

Reviewing the results from the MnDOT autonomous bus pilot study, Fisher and his colleagues “began to ask ourselves: What would a road be like that could handle the repetitive wear of (autonomous) vehicles?” Their conclusion: AVs will require a different type of street, Fisher says, perhaps one that features tracks of reinforced-concrete grade beams for the AVs to drive along. There would also be connections to adjoining tracks on the side of the road in case a vehicle needs to pull off to pick up or drop off passengers or allow other vehicles to pass.

The use of such grade beams would, in turn, enable the road surface between and around the beams to become pervious. For example, instead of constructing continuously paved roads with curb-and-gutter storm sewer systems — which are necessary today — the future streets for AVs could replace impervious asphalt with permeable concrete pavers or low ground-cover vegetation, such as sedum. Then, by replacing the existing stormwater system with underground stormwater retention basins or adjacent bioswales, “it would allow us to capture and not only retain stormwater but also recharge aquifers” as the water percolates down through the roadbed, Fisher says.

For a 36,000 sq ft road surface, which today is entirely impervious, the new AV street design could feature as much as 27,000 sq ft of permeable surfaces, with only about 9,000 sq ft of impervious concrete for the grade beams, Fisher adds.

Additional benefits would derive from the fact that AVs are expected to generate much greater throughput, which means “you won’t need as many lanes to move to the same number of people,” Fisher notes. Thus, four-lane roads today could need just two lanes in the future, and those lanes could be narrower— perhaps just 8 ft wide lanes compared with the 11 or 12 ft lane widths of current streets, Fisher says. The space no longer needed for road surfaces could then be reallocated to more green space, including trees and other plantings, that could dramatically help with carbon sequestration and reduce the urban heat island effect created by today’s roads.

Even overhead streetlights could disappear, reducing the effects of light pollution in cities and suburbs, since the roadway itself would no longer need to be illuminated. Instead, bollards along the road could simply illuminate the adjoining sidewalk and bike paths.

If, as Fisher expects, AVs are eventually shared rather than individually owned — as part of mobility-as-a-service operations — then many existing parking areas could be converted to other uses as well. As much as 30% of urban and suburban land is currently dedicated to parking, Fisher notes, so all that land could be freed up for alternative uses.

Although AVs will need to share the road with human-driven vehicles for a certain period, Fisher expects that driving itself will eventually be banned in urban and suburban areas and relegated only to the countryside. He compares this scenario to what happened about 100 years ago when cars and trucks began to replace horses.

“We discovered that having horses and cars on the road at the same time doesn’t work very well,” Fisher notes. So today, “we relegate horses to the countryside, and you can’t ride a horse down a city or suburban street. In the same way, within a couple decades, you won’t be able to drive down a city or suburban street.”

As driving a car yourself becomes less common it will also become far more expensive because of the rising cost of car insurance as the insurable pool of high-risk drivers shrinks, Fisher predicts. Eventually, driving could become a hobby just for rich people — and even they will likely need to take AVs to get out to places in the country where they will store their cars, he adds.

The possibilities presented by AVs and the redesign of roads provide “a huge opportunity for our civil engineering community to envision a different kind of infrastructure that is more environmentally friendly and much safer,” Fisher says.

Moving forward, Fisher and his colleagues are working with MnDOT to develop a pilot project to test their proposed redesign of roads for AVs at various sites within the state, including Grand Rapids and Rochester.

An online publication called Future Streets, summarizing the findings and proposals, is expected to be released later this year.

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In a recent case study in the Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste, authors Ipsita Thakur; Suraj Jena; Rabindra Kumar Panda, Ph.D.; Manaswini Behera, Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE; and Susanta Kishore Pattanaik, sampled groundwater quality from 25 locations. Using the DRASTIC method, an index-based methodology, the researchers assessed groundwater contamination to develop a vulnerability map.

Their research, “Groundwater Vulnerability Assessment from a Drinking Water Perspective: Case Study in a Tropical Groundwater Basin in Eastern India,” used seven hydrogeological parameters and seven thematic layers. Learn more about this study, and how it can help policy makers to choose suitable land-use patterns. To see the results, read the full paper in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

This study assessed the groundwater vulnerability of the Rana groundwater basin, Odisha, India. The study attempts to optimize the DRASTIC method by modifying the weights and ratings assigned to the DRASTIC parameters using the analytical hierarchy process. Sensitivity analysis has been carried out to quantify the influence of each parameter. The groundwater vulnerability results obtained from both DRASTIC and modified DRASTIC methods were validated using the water quality index (WQI) values computed through groundwater quality data at 25 sampling locations. The results revealed that the index values generated through modified DRASTIC possessed a higher correlation with the WQI compared with the original DRASTIC method. The groundwater level and net recharge were found to be having a greater influence on groundwater vulnerability. The obtained vulnerability maps from the modified DRASTIC method revealed that about 70% of the area was under very low to low vulnerable zones, whereas 14% of the area was under high to very high vulnerable zones. It was also observed that most of the high to very high vulnerable zones were located on the agriculturally dominated areas lying in the northern part of the basin. The result obtained will play an immense role in adopting management practices to conserve the groundwater quality of the study basin.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HZ.2153-5515.0000610

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Local governments in the Sacramento, California, region are evaluating options to work together to create a regional trail network that will stitch together six counties and 22 cities in a bicycle-accessible network.

“Our high-level estimate is that the envisioned trail network would be 800 mi of trail, building off an existing (though fragmented) 450 mi of trail with potential to connect people to where they want to go,” says Victoria Cacciatore, a transportation analyst for the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. (SACOG, as the organization is known, is an association of local governments in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba counties as well as the 22 cities located within those counties.)

‘Lots of gaps’

While the region already includes some 30 mi of linked trails along the American River, collectively the 450 mi of existing trailways consist primarily of “disconnected segments” that often extend for just a few miles at most, Cacciatore says. “Many of our communities in the Sacramento region were designed without connecting trails,” she notes.

The city of Elk Grove is one such community. Most of the existing trails in the Sacramento suburb were built by developers to serve individual developments, says Kevin Bewsey, P.E., the capital program division manager for the Elk Grove Public Works Department. As a result, “there’s lots of gaps in the trail system,” Bewsey says. “We have a lot of 1 to 2 mi segments, and then there’s just some sort of gap. It’s challenging, but I think there’s a lot of potential there.”

Evaluating access and goals

As part of its aim to create one holistic network of trails, SACOG has begun evaluating the state of the existing trails in the region as well as possible opportunities for expanding and linking them.

“We have done some initial work on identifying where we have existing trails, where we have planned trails, and where we have gaps,” Cacciatore says.

This analysis not only looked at the locations of existing trails but also who has access to them. “Only 48% of the region lives near a trail of any length,” Cacciatore says. What is more, economic status tends to equate to trail access. “We found that, in our region, if you are lower income, you are 30% less likely to have access to trails than a person having a higher income,” she notes.

The analysis also sought to determine the “shared goals” for a regional trail network among the various local governments, Cacciatore says. Top goals included improved outcomes regarding community health, economic vitality, and environmental justice, she notes.

“There’s a variety of health benefits to trails,” Bewsey says, noting that such benefits increase as trail networks grow in size. “If you have regional trails, as opposed to short trails, you get many more users using it.,” he says. “And so the overall community gets healthier.”

To the extent that a regional trail network is constructed separately from roadways, safety also will improve, Bewsey notes. “You’ll actually see an improvement on overall safety because (trail users) will not be biking adjacent to a vehicle or having to go through an intersection,” he says.

The possibility of using trails as a means of boosting economic vitality locally has taken on new urgency in light of the recent shutdowns caused by COVID-19. “Many of the cities and communities within our region saw a number of their small businesses shutter during the lockdowns, and they’re just not coming out on the other side of the pandemic,” Cacciatore says. As a result, local communities view a more expansive trail network as a means to help residents gain better access to local businesses and provide a more attractive environment for businesses themselves, she says.

Many hurdles

Planning and implementing a regional trail network will require overcoming myriad challenges, not the least of which is balancing the different expectations that its users will have for the network. In some cases, residents may view the network as a means of getting from point A to point B — perhaps even as a commuter thoroughfare — while others might view a trail as a destination in itself. “It’s difficult to serve those multiple masters,” Cacciatore says.

The regional nature of the trail network also can create challenges. “A lot of these projects are multijurisdictional,” Bewsey says. “For a regional trail to be truly regional, you can’t just have each agency do their own project and just stop at their boundary. There are certain projects you have to coordinate on.” In these cases, the different jurisdictions have to agree on such matters as who will have responsibility for design and construction and who will handle maintenance. “It takes a lot of effort to figure out those roles,” he says.

Geography also presents its own hurdles. “We do have a lot of barriers that separate trails, such as freeways and rivers,” Cacciatore says. “We’re blessed with a lot of rivers in the region. But that means you also have a lot of need for bridges.” Bridges, of course, mean higher costs for construction as well as maintenance, she notes.

With so many challenges to address, a regional trail network will require a deft touch on the part of its designers. “There are going to be a lot of different creative design solutions that need to come in,” Cacciatore says.

Public outreach will play a critical role in ensuring the successful development of the regional trail network over the long term. “Community engagement on trails is huge,” Bewsey says. “A lot of people view trails as an amenity, especially if they’re planning to use them.” However, residents may take a different view of a proposed trail if it is to be built adjacent to their own property. “Having (trail) users behind your house doesn’t get people really excited sometimes,” he says. Therefore, “having strong outreach is always important so that the community understands and values the benefit of the trail.”

Next steps

From now until the end of the year, SACOG will work with local cities, counties, and other partners to identify what elements should be included as part of a regional trail network. As part of this effort, SACOG and its partners “will be looking at how to prioritize segments for implementation,” Cacciatore says. “We’re looking at the top tier of projects that we really need to do right away to get the system going, to jump-start it.”

At year’s end, SACOG’s board is expected to approve a plan for the regional network. By spring 2022, the organization will have identified its top-priority projects to be conducted as part of the network, Cacciatore says.

Cost estimates for the network also will be available then, she says.

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Researchers Ehsan Jalilifar, S.M.ASCE; Maria Koliou, A.M.ASCE; and Weichiang Pang, A.M.ASCE., sought to characterize the mechanical properties (shear strength, stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation), of three common types of CLT diaphragm connections, and to estimate the behavior of those connections. Their research, which involved 56 tests to account for the effects of fasteners’ type, spacing and drive angle, is presented in “Experimental and Numerical Characterization of Monotonic and Cyclic Performance of Cross-Laminated Timber Dowel-Type Connections,” in the Journal of Structural Engineering.

Read their findings, including force-displacement curves and energy dissipation, in the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0003059

Abstract

An immeasurable amount of greenhouse gas emissions during the process of steel purification and concrete production has attracted environmentally friendly engineers’ attention to extend and enhance the use of wood as a structural material. During the last two decades, cross-laminated timber (CLT) has emerged as a high-strength engineered wood product to improve resistance and performance of timber structures, and is being used as a replacement for some mid and low-rise commercial buildings made of concrete and steel in the US. Due to the fact that CLT is a relatively new engineered wood product, there is a lack of knowledge on the mechanical behavior of CLT members and connections. The goal of the present study is to characterize the mechanical properties (specifically shear resistance) of three common types of CLT diaphragm connections including surface spline, half lap, and butt joint, and estimate the behavior of those connections in ultimate limit states, such as earthquake loads, and also serviceability limit states. In doing so, an experimental schedule was developed for a total of 56 tests accounting for different test variables including fastener orientation, type, length, and spacing. More specifically, two types of dowel-type fasteners, namely nail and screw, were considered, while the effect of fastener spacing and inclination was considered by changing the spacing of nails and driven angle of screws. The exerted force and displacement were recorded generating hysteresis curves to assess the failure mechanisms, shear modulus of elasticity, ultimate allowable shear strength and displacement, and energy dissipation of the various connections studied. A finite-element model based on elastoplastic behavior of CLT for a half-lap connection was also developed to estimate the shear behavior of this type of connection numerically and compare it with the experimental findings. Finally, the experimental results were used to compute the optimized hysteretic parameters (and their statistics) for the CUREE-SAWS hysteretic model for further adoption in modeling of diaphragm components by practicing engineers and researchers.

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Residential and commercial buildings account for approximately 40% of U.S. energy use and more than one-third of the country’s carbon emissions, yet they waste more than $100 billion annually because of inefficiency, according to the DOE. Against this backdrop, the department’s initiatives seek to “cut the energy and emissions footprints of buildings by reducing their waste of polluting energy sources and integrating them with clean, electrified power,” according to a May 17 news release from the DOE announcing the new initiatives.

“America’s path to a net-zero carbon economy runs straight through our buildings, which means we need to help households and commercial buildings across the nation reduce their emissions and convert to cheaper, cleaner energy,” Jennifer Granholm, the DOE secretary, is quoted as saying in the release. 

Achieving low carbon emissions

The DOE recently implemented its Low Carbon Pilot program to evaluate and demonstrate innovative methods for reducing carbon dioxide emissions associated with buildings. As part of this program, the DOE is “working with nearly 60 partners across sectors over the next two years to demonstrate real-world pathways to achieving low carbon emissions from buildings and manufacturing operations,” says Maria Vargas, the director of the DOE’s Better Buildings Initiative.

(The Low Carbon Pilot program is part of the DOE’s existing Better Buildings Initiative, an effort that was started in 2011 to improve energy efficiency in U.S. homes, commercial buildings, and industrial facilities.)

Participants in the Low Carbon Pilot program comprise a mix of private and public organizations, including the pharmaceutical and biotechnology company AstraZeneca, the Eastman Chemical Co., the Ford Motor Co., the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the New York City Housing Authority, and the aerospace and defense company Raytheon Technologies Corp.

“The goal of this effort is to understand and demonstrate how to achieve real-world carbon dioxide emission reductions in buildings and plants,” Vargas says.

“Partners who join will share their experiences, successes, and challenges pursuing low- or no-carbon strategies at two or more of their buildings within a two-year time frame,” Vargas says. “Partners are currently filling out an action plan outlining their low/no carbon strategies for implementing ultra-energy-efficient building and management practices.”

Participants can pursue various options for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

One involves demonstrating superior energy efficiency “through any combination of design strategies, advanced energy technologies, building management, and operational practices,” according to a DOE fact sheet on the program.

A second option entails acting as a “grid asset,” either by interacting with the electric grid, becoming responsive to the availability of carbon-free electricity, or reducing grid congestion, the fact sheet notes. Actions in line with this option include using energy storage or other technologies that enable dynamic demand management, shifting energy loads away from peak power times and carbon-intensive periods, and feeding low carbon electricity onto the grid during times of peak demand.

A third option includes the use of low carbon energy supplies, preferably those generated on-site or as close to the site as possible “to ensure the facility is actually powered by electricity generated from these low carbon sources,” the fact sheet states.

Finally, participants can also develop a plan for tracking and reducing operational carbon dioxide emissions “to eventually achieve zero or low carbon status,” according to the fact sheet.

While carbon dioxide emission reductions are the goal, participants in the pilot are not required to achieve any specific reduction targets, Vargas says. “Instead, DOE is interested in focusing on decarbonization at the building/plant level, understanding the different pathways/opportunities and barriers, and partnering on those tangible efforts,” she says.

For its part, the DOE pledges to “provide technical assistance and guidance for optimizing carbon reduction pathways, including helping to establish baselines and setting goals,” according to the fact sheet. As part of the pilot, “partners will develop a wedge or bridge analysis showing how their carbon savings were achieved and any future plans for further reduction,” the fact sheet notes.

Highlighting ongoing successes

As part of the Building’s Initiative, participants among multiple sectors pledge to reduce their energy use by at least 20% in a decade.

Since 2012, more than 360 participants in the initiative collectively have reported an energy savings of 760 trillion Btu and more than $6 billion in cost savings, according to a progress report released by the DOE earlier this year.

Among the participants in the Better Buildings Initiative is Alexandria Renew Enterprises, the entity that treats wastewater for the city of Alexandria, Virginia, and portions of Fairfax County, Virginia. As part of the initiative, AlexRenew is “committed to reducing our total energy use by 25% over the 2005 baseline by 2025,” says Allison Deines, a senior policy analyst at the organization. “We have already made significant reductions in our energy use and are confident that we will meet this goal.”

In keeping with this commitment, AlexRenew’s administrative office building has been certified as a platinum-level facility in accordance with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, according to a DOE summary of AlexRenew’s participation. In addition to implementing energy-efficient processes for treating wastewater, AlexRenew has converted more than 600 exterior campus lights to use LED bulbs, reducing energy demand for campus lighting by more than 85%, according to the summary.

Buildings and the grid

In another bid to promote energy efficiency in the built environment, the DOE released its National Roadmap for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings in May. Grid-interactive efficient buildings, also known as GEBs, include “smart technologies characterized by the active use of distributed energy resources to optimize energy use for grid services, occupant needs and preferences, and cost reductions in a continuous and integrated way,” according to the National Roadmap.

Greater implementation of GEBs “can play a key role in promoting greater affordability, resilience, environmental performance, and reliability across the U.S. electric power system,” the National Roadmap states.

In fact, by reducing and changing the timing of electricity consumption, GEBs “could decrease (carbon dioxide) emissions by 80 million tons per year by 2030, or 6% of total power sector (carbon dioxide) emissions,” according to the National Roadmap.

However, “technical and market barriers” are preventing widespread adoption of GEBs, the National Roadmap states. To help overcome these barriers, the document includes more than a dozen recommendations for the building sector to implement.

As part of these, the National Roadmap recommends accelerating technology interoperability and improving access to and use of data regarding electricity use and demand flexibility to advance GEB-related research, development, and data. To enhance the value of GEBs to consumers and utilities, the DOE recommends such steps as the development of incentive-based programs and the incorporation of demand flexibility into resource planning.

As a means of empowering GEB users, installers, and operators, the DOE also recommends that sector participants “understand user interactions” with GEBs and understand the role of technology, “develop GEB design and operation decision-making tools,” and “integrate smart technology training into existing programs,” according to the National Roadmap.

Finally, the DOE calls on governments of all levels to “lead by example, expand funding and financing options, consider use of codes and standards, (and) consider implementing state targets or mandates,” the National Roadmap states.

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A circular economy concept aims to reduce, reuse, and recycle to more effectively address the volume of waste generated by the construction industry. The concept of lean thinking, which was developed for the automotive industry, looks to eliminate waste during the process, to become more efficient, agile and flexible. The similarity in these concepts begs the question, what relationship is there between lean construction and circular economy practices?

A new paper for the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management seeks to identify the positive and negative interactions for both practices — circular economy and lean construction. “Interactions between Lean Construction Principles and Circular Economy Practices for the Construction Industry,” by Gabriel Luiz Fritz Benachio; Maria do Carmo Duarte Freitas, Ph.D.; and Sergio Fernando Tavares, Ph.D., uses a relationship analysis to create a matrix between both subjects. Read their findings and how these concepts can be applied in the abstract below, or by reading the full paper in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

With the recurrent challenge of scarcity of resources in the world, the construction industry has been giving more attention to sustainability over the last decades, given that this industry is responsible for a big percentage of waste generated daily as well as a large amount of natural resources extraction. This high use of natural resources happens because the construction industry still uses the linear economy of “take-use-dispose,” which disposes a high amount of material in the end-of-life stage of a building. Opposed to that traditional process, the circular economy (CE) looks to better manage the building materials and consider them as valuable resources after the end-of-life of a building, reducing the amount of waste created. Similarly, the concept of lean construction (LC) looks to improve the value of the building, reducing waste, and improving productivity in construction, and has been studied since the nineties. Their synergies make their combination likely to bring benefits for the construction industry; however, this blend of concepts has not been extensively studied in the built environment, making it interesting to investigate it. The objective of this research was to find the interactions, positive or not, between the CE practices and the LC principles, using the method of content analysis to create a matrix of relationships that found a total of 74 interactions, 70 positive and 4 negatives. From these interactions, the LC principle of “reducing the share of non-value-adding activities” had the biggest number of interactions with CE practices, the practice of “off-site construction” had the biggest number of interactions with LC principles, and the construction stage was the life cycle phase that averaged the biggest number of interactions. Finally, it was possible to identify an optimal project sequence that took use of the CE practices that had the most LC principles incorporated into them.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0002082

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In cities and states along the United States’ Atlantic Coast and into the adjoining Gulf of Mexico, engineers have worked with government agencies, property owners, and others to prepare their sites and facilities for the 2021 hurricane season, now underway. As stakeholders look ahead, they also often look back — to a major storm that struck their region in the past and taught them hard lessons about how to fight back against the winds and the waves as well as how to build a more sustainable future.

For the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts “another above-normal” season, but not one with as much storm activity as 2020. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts a 60% chance of an above-normal season, a 30% chance of a near-normal season, and a 10% chance of a below-normal season. NOAA also expects a likely range of 13 to 20 named storms during the 2021 season, which began June 1 and extends through Nov. 30. Six to 10 of those storms could become hurricanes, NOAA predicts, and three to five could become major hurricanes — those designated as category 3, 4, or 5.

Sandy’s legacy
In the New York City region, the legacy of flooded facilities and other devastation wreaked by 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, also sometimes called Superstorm Sandy, continues to drive many efforts to prepare for and protect against similar extreme weather events. At the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — which maintains and operates five airports, multiple bridges and tunnels, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson rail system, and other transportation and seaport-related infrastructure for the two states — Sandy “kick-started efforts to mitigate our flood risk,” notes Josh DeFlorio, LEED AP, ENV SP, the chief of resilience and sustainability in the Port Authority’s engineering department.

Although the Port Authority already had a “relatively robust flood program” before Sandy, those efforts “became much more focused and embodied much higher standards after Sandy,” DeFlorio explains.

Within a few years of Sandy’s landfall, the Port Authority introduced the first iteration of its Climate Resilience Design Guidelines, which focused mostly on coastal flood risk “because that is the most pressing hazard we face, both in terms of frequency of occurrence and magnitude of impacts,” DeFlorio says. But the guidelines also “gave us a formula, a system for applying flood mitigation criteria that takes into account not just current threats but potential threats related to sea level rise and storm surge.” 

The PATH rail system was one of the Port Authority’s hardest-hit assets when Sandy struck, experiencing more than $1 billion worth of damage and significant disruption of service, DeFlorio notes. In response, the Port Authority has worked to protect the station head houses, several of which are located adjacent to the Hudson River and were a major source of floodwater infiltration into the rail tunnels during Sandy.

These efforts include the installation of high-grade, aquarium-style glass, 3 in. to 4 in. thick, around station elevators. Stoplog systems — temporary flood barriers comprising stacked aluminum segments, waterproofed with gaskets — were also erected at the tops of staircases. In addition, flexible fabric barriers can now be pulled across portals, and massive steel doors, some weighing as much as 5,600 lb, can be shut and sealed against the water that would otherwise flood a tunnel, DeFlorio notes.

Because Sandy also damaged or destroyed PATH rolling stock, the Port Authority is installing new flood protections at its primary rail storage yard, the Harrison Car Maintenance Facility in New Jersey, including a new concrete sea wall and deployable swinging floodgates. The Port Authority is also increasing the capacity of some smaller rail yards that are located at higher elevations than the Harrison facility so it can safely store rolling stock during a storm event, DeFlorio says.

At LaGuardia Airport, sections of which were flooded for several days by Sandy, the Port Authority augmented the capacity of the existing pump system used to dewater the airfield, which is located within a protective berm. The Port Authority also raised the elevation of the pump control systems and the electrical distribution infrastructure that powers the pumps. During Sandy, DeFlorio notes, some pumps lost power because the electrical and control systems were damaged by flooding, which meant the pumps “couldn’t do their job during the storm or immediately after.”

Transit’s trials
In the aftermath of Sandy, “everything we build now has a flood-resiliency component to it,” says Lindsay Maguire, P.E., ENV SP, a vice president and the New York director of operations of Naik Consulting Group, a minority business enterprise engineering and construction management firm, headquartered in Edison, New Jersey. While she was with Naik and other firms before that, Maguire worked on various projects at other rail yards in the region, including the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s New York City Transit 207th Street Railyard, which is under the jurisdiction of the MTA. The MTA also operates the New York City subway system, the Long Island Rail Road, and other transportation infrastructure networks. 

Maguire was a civil engineer on a team that designed a perimeter flood wall to protect the 207th Street Yard and its portal to the NYC Transit tracks, which had flooded heavily during the 2012 storm. But the site was filled with subterranean utility lines, including a large interceptor sewer that cut across the entire yard, roughly 25 ft underground. Although the interceptor is being relocated outside the rail yard, that solution comes with additional challenges because of the presence of an elevated subway train and other underground utilities at the new site, she notes.

The design and construction of flood protection systems often involve an array of questions beyond the basics of how to keep floodwaters at bay. Often, a client will simply say, “We need this area protected,” explains Maguire. But that somewhat general goal requires the design team to explore multiple specific issues, such as what exactly needs to be protected: a generator, for example, or an entire train? An entire building or just one portion of the structure? How long can the protected site or equipment be out of operation? A day or more? A week? Or does it need to stay in operation throughout the storm? 

Likewise, Maguire says, the design team needs to understand where a deployable flood barrier — as opposed to something permanent, like a sea wall — can be stored. Is there space at the site? Nearby? Or someplace farther away that requires transportation to get the barrier to the site before the storm hits? Designers need to ask such questions even about something as simple as sandbags, Maguire stresses. “If you need a lot of them, where will you store them until needed?” she asks. “How long can they stay in storage before they need to be replaced?”

Other questions include: How many employees will be at the site before or during the storm to help deploy the barrier? How long will it take to install the barrier, and how well trained are the employees who will be available to do the work? How often have they practiced deploying the barrier? And are the same employees who were trained on the system still available, or have new, untrained employees been rotated in? 

Testing the waters
Some systems can be installed or secured relatively quickly. Others — such as a large rubber tube that, somewhat ironically, is filled with water to create a watertight seal — require as much as two days of advance notice to get ready and put in place, involving considerable heavy lifting and other physical effort, Maguire says.

A property owner must also be encouraged to consider how well the barrier has been maintained over its life in storage. If there is something like a flood wall in the ground that needs to be raised, has the system been tested at all to be certain it will function when needed? In a somewhat unique example of testing a flood protection system, the MTA blocked off and flooded the entrance to one of its own subway stations in Brooklyn to see how well a new floodgate would work. The system apparently worked so well that “the entire station appeared to be submerged, with water filling the staircase leading outside,” explained a November 21, 2019, news report from NBCNewYork.com.

A site’s operations and maintenance personnel should be included in all discussions about flood protection systems, Maguire notes. She recalls one project on which the designers and the client’s executive staff suggested using a series of stacked, metal stoplogs to close off a portal. But it was only when people began to examine the actual site and take measurements of the portal that the client’s team got involved, asking questions about where the stoplogs would be stored and who would actually install the 12 stoplogs, each of which weighed several hundred pounds.

Depending on the client, a project might face security concerns that limit how the design team conducts its work.

“It was a learning curve for everybody,” Maguire recalls. Flood mitigation projects can require extensive communications and interactions with various city departments or regulatory agencies to obtain the necessary permits and approvals for the work being planned — such as the installation of new pumps that will drain water outside the site being protected, adds March Chadwick, AIA, LEED AP, the president of New York City-based M.Arch Architects. 

Depending on the client, a project — especially one involving critical infrastructure — might face security concerns that limit how the design team conducts its work, Chadwick says. For example, his firm has faced restrictions on what it could do with the existing drawings of a site being examined for a flood protection system. They were also discouraged from creating building information modeling drawings because the client was concerned that data captured in the BIM might end up “someplace they couldn’t control or manage,” he explains.

Sewer safety
On Florida’s Atlantic Coast, multiple hurricanes over the past century have caused billions of dollars in damages and killed thousands. In Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous county, the water and sewer department has designed its critical infrastructure to exceed what the standard building codes require in terms of wind bursts and flooding, says Annalise Mannix, P.E., PMP, ENV SP, the department’s division chief for planning and development. “What we’ve been doing,” Mannix explains, “is developing a basic risk model for all of our pump stations and our sewer facilities. We identified all the most critical infrastructure based on risk.” 

Then, as the county replaces equipment at its various sites, it works to relocate or upgrade the equipment on the basis of how critical that facility might be. For example, a pump station that services a hospital or an elementary school that might be used for evacuation purposes during a storm would be considered more critical than other sites.

On Florida’s Atlantic Coast, multiple hurricanes over the past century have caused billions of dollars in damages and killed thousands.

The county is also considering how sea level rise will affect overall operations. Vital equipment is being elevated, and the department has developed the capability of shifting the direction of wastewater flow between the region’s three treatment plants to accommodate potentially large rain events at one end of the county or the other, she explains.

Similar risk models are being considered for the drinking water system, Mannix adds.

Miami-Dade County also plans to move various older pumping stations that are located beneath the region’s highways. Such locations were not as much of a challenge 30 or 40 years ago when there were only 2,000-3,000 vehicles a day on those roads, Mannix says. But today there can be more than three times as much traffic. That makes it difficult and dangerous to repair such facilities after a major storm — especially when local police are often busy with so much else that they cannot “help us control traffic while we work on a pump station in the middle of the road,” Mannix explains.

Rising groundwater in the region and an increasing number of high-tide events related to sea level rise have put thousands of commercial properties that use septic tanks at risk of being compromised or failing. And that could lead to serious environmental impacts and public health risks. As a result, Miami-Dade County is trying to connect as many commercial properties as possible to the county’s sewer system, Mannix says. A similar septic-to-sewer effort is planned for residential property owners.

Hidden measures
Storm hardening is a key part of the work performed by engineers at WGI, in West Palm Beach, Florida. Such efforts begin with a careful assessment of the facility to be protected, explains Jeff Bergmann, P.E., M.ASCE, WGI’s director of specialty structures. “We look inside buildings, at roofs, at mechanical units, and anything on the ground or mounted to the ground,” says Bergmann.

Problems can be discovered in everything from the trees surrounding a building — which can become projectiles in heavy winds — to mechanical units that are not tied down at all but simply set on the ground. Rooftop systems attached with just a few screws are additional hazards; they are unlikely to hold the equipment in place during 140 mph winds, Bergmann warns.

“We walk through a building looking for vulnerabilities,” Bergmann notes. Sometimes, especially in older buildings, the structure might look fine, but the engineers discover the roof diaphragm is not attached to the walls. “Or there’s a discontinuity to the load path, or you find other things that may have been done 30 or 40 years ago” that do not meet the requirements of today’s building codes, Bergmann explains.

Problems can be discovered in everything from the trees surrounding a building — which can become projectiles in heavy winds — to mechanical units that are not tied down at all but simply set on the ground.

There are also oversights that weren’t known to be problems at the time of construction. Bergmann recalls one wastewater facility that he and a colleague examined in which the building’s security system featured magnetic locks on the doors and motion sensors that unlocked those doors when someone inside the structure was ready to exit. But there was nothing to stop the system from unlocking doors during a hurricane if anyone approached the motion sensors, “creating an automatic breach during a storm event,” Bergmann says. As a result of that discovery, the utility added a new protocol that turned off the magnetic locks during storms to keep its doors secure, he adds.

Galveston endures
In Texas, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is constructing a project known as the Sabine Pass to Galveston Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management program. Also known as S2G, the program is part of the Corps’ Texas Coastal Resiliency Master Plan, which is a regional approach to address potential flooding and storm surge as well as the erosion of shorelines and degradation of coastal wetlands, explains Teresa King, the Corps’ S2G program manager. 

Within the overall S2G project are separate efforts, including the Port Arthur and Vicinity portion, which will involve raising approximately 5.5 mi of the existing 27.8 mi of earthen levees and replacing approximately 5.7 mi of flood wall. A separate 1,830 ft of new earthen levee will be constructed in the Port Neches area. 

A joint venture of Freese and Nichols Inc., COWI North America Inc., and CDM Smith Inc. is providing design services to the Corps for the Port Arthur and Vicinity project, which includes the region’s petroleum refineries and deep-water port. Given recent historic storms in the region as well as the barge traffic in and out of the port, the engineers are especially focused on designing structures to withstand barge impact loads, says Michael Oleson, P.E., PMP, M.ASCE, a CDM Smith associate. 

Designing hurricane protection systems is a dynamic process that can be as unpredictable as the climatic conditions that drive such work in the first place.

“Another challenge faced during the project was the fact that it began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Oleson says, which “created challenges related to remote collaboration and data sharing. Opportunities for one-on-one discussions (and) major milestone review meetings were limited.” 

Under such circumstances, “a successful team maintains continuous and constant communication with all of the key stakeholders,” Oleson explains. “The team must also document and track in the project-risk register all of the potential project risks with respect to cost, schedule, technical, etc., so that the risks can be monitored and evaluated.” 

Designing hurricane protection systems is a dynamic process that can be as unpredictable as the climatic conditions that drive such work in the first place. And what seems to be the right solution for a problem today might not continue to work as well going forward. 

When dealing with higher tides, for instance, the solution might involve raising a sea wall another foot or more, says Bergmann. But when that sea wall features a public walkway, for instance, and 10 years from now sea level rise has led to a need to raise that sea wall even higher, “all of the slopes you had originally calculated suddenly have to be raised,” Bergmann says. And that might lead the wall to exceed the maximum slopes allowed under the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

“So you always have to keep in mind what might happen in the future,” Bergmann concludes.

SIDEBAR
Clients’ perspectives on hurricane preparedness

Engineers, of course, are quite used to providing consulting services to property owners and other clients. But the communications inherent to such services generally work best when the conversation goes in both directions. So here’s a sample of what some clients would like those engineers to understand.

Josh DeFlorio, LEED AP, ENV SP, the chief of resilience and sustainability in the engineering department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, stresses that “we consider ourselves a best-in-class organization, and so (just designing to) code is not sufficient. Our standards go well above and beyond (code),” DeFlorio explains.

For example, on one project to storm-harden a Port Authority Trans-Hudson railway station head house, the building code only required the design to consider hydrostatic and hydrodynamic forces plus debris loading. Thus, a strict adherence to code would not have addressed the pressure of breaking waves. 

But the Port Authority expects the zone of significant wave action — dubbed a V-Zone by the Federal Emergency Management Agency — to migrate inland because of sea level rise over the next 50 years or so, DeFlorio says. “So we worked with our design partners to look at not just what the expected flood zone is today but what we’ll expect the flood zone to look like during the expected service life of the site, which we hope will last until 2080 or well beyond.” 

Potential engineering consultants for the Port Authority need to understand what its requirements are by reading the organization’s design guidelines — on topics ranging from structural and geotechnical issues to climate resilience and sustainability — which are available through the various links on the “Engineering Available Documents” portion of its website. 

The Port Authority maintains a “call-in” list of what are essentially prequalified vendors, “so getting on that list is a key thing for anyone who wants to do a lot of business with the engineering department,” he notes. One of the first steps toward getting on the list is to fill out the Port Authority’s Professional Service Firm Questionnaire, available on the “Vendor Resources” portion of the website. Then be sure to keep your contact information up to date, DeFlorio says, since the Port Authority likes to maintain contact with its call-in firms “on an ongoing basis, whether or not you’re working on an active project.”

Engineers, of course, are quite used to providing consulting services to property owners and other clients. But the communications inherent to such services generally work best when the conversation goes in both directions.

In addition, the Port Authority is “laser-focused on enhancing the diversity of our professional service firms,” DeFlorio notes. The official language specifies that contractors “shall use good faith efforts to achieve participation equivalent to” 20% of the total contract price for Port Authority-certified minority-owned enterprises and 10% for Port Authority-certified woman-owned enterprises. Another 3% is aimed at service-disabled veteran owners, DeFlorio adds. The Port Authority has also hired a chief of diversity and inclusion, with whom the engineering department works closely to “ensure we are meeting our D&I targets, not just for procurement but also for conducting active outreach to small businesses,” DeFlorio says. 

Similarly, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stresses that consulting engineers should be familiar with the Corps’ processes as detailed within numerous publicly available documents, including engineering regulations, manuals, circulars, technical letters, and other information that can be found through the Corps’ website.

Potential consulting engineers can learn valuable lessons about working with the Corps through project-specific documents, such as the Interagency Performance Evaluation Taskforce report completed after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, available from multiple sources, including, the Homeland Security Digital Library. 

Engineering consultants also need to be aware of considerations unique to particular locations, such as the fact that in North Carolina most roads are owned by the state or specific localities; there are no county-owned roads in the state, notes Joe Stanton, the assistant director for recovery at North Carolina Emergency Management, part of the state’s Department of Public Safety. 

Likewise, it can be important to understand the details of potential funding sources. For example, FEMA has a disaster relief program that primarily helps individual homeowners — but the program also sets aside 5% for so-called initiative projects that can be spent on public infrastructure work, from acquiring generators to developing early warning systems or education programs. These are efforts that can be hard to quantify in applications by a state for emergency-response funding, notes Steve McGugan, North Carolina’s state hazard mitigation officer.

Like others, Annalise Mannix, P.E., PMP, ENV SP, the division chief for planning and development at Florida’s Miami-Dade County water and sewer department, stresses that her department’s goal is not to just meet whatever the building code sets as the minimum standard but to exceed that mark. “We know the sea wall ordinance says you have to build the wall to 5 ft,” Mannix explains. “But that doesn’t mean ‘only’ 5 ft. It doesn’t say we can’t build it higher, to 8 ft.”

When her department seeks out consulting engineers, Mannix says, she looks for “clear specifics on their projects in which they performed flood-related hydrologic and hydraulic studies for utility, commercial, and residential developments.” The information provided should include their “interaction and coordination with clients, field visits, investigation of existing and proposed conditions, computer simulations, analyses, designs, preparation of exhibits and reports, and the evaluation of alternative solutions to hydrologic and hydraulic problems in conformance with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and governmental codes and regulations.”

Too frequently, though, “we have to spend a tremendous amount of time educating the consultants on the details of our needs, the fine details of the scope of the work that is required,” Mannix says. 

Many of these firms “have a tendency to look at the big picture,” she explains, “but when you get down to the fine details of implementing a design, I find that the project-level staff probably need a bit more education on the flood plain laws, the National Flood Insurance Program, the federal guidelines on critical facilities, the significant details on what are FEMA mandatory requirements,” and similar key topics. 

Mannix has also encountered situations in which consultants tout the experience levels of their engineers in the areas she most requires, but then “the actual members of the firm who are assigned to the project might not meet that same level of experience,” she says. “It’s the engineering interns who actually go out in the field — or the (engineers in training) or people with only a few years of experience,” she explains. 

Depending on the project’s deadlines and urgency, Mannix adds, her department might try to work with the less experienced engineers. But other times, she has “gone back to the consulting firm’s leadership to say: ‘Look, I think we need to have a little bit more focus, bring in some people who have a little more depth of knowledge.’”

Mannix stresses the need for consulting engineers to be familiar with the relevant standards, such as ASCE 24, Flood Resistant Design and Construction, and ASCE 7, Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures, along with the Environmental Protection Agency’s utility standards, FEMA’s building science publications and guidelines related to flood risks, and similar documents.

Again, though, Mannix hopes the engineers her department works with can exceed the minimums set in such codes and standards. For example, while some clients might want to save money by just following what FEMA sets as the base flood elevation for a specific location, Mannix says an experienced engineer “has a duty to note” that sea level rise is increasing a certain number of inches or feet per decade and a duty to consider wind and flood events based on the best available science.

“It’s very important for engineering firms to advise what’s in the best interest of the county,” she says, “regardless of whether it meets the budget or not.” 

Engineers should be “designing an asset not just to withstand the conditions you expect it to face today or the conditions it has faced historically — you want the assets you deliver today to endure; you want them to achieve or exceed their design life span,” adds DeFlorio. Otherwise, “it’s a poor use of public money.”

Robert L. Reid is the senior editor and features manager of Civil Engineering.

This article first appeared in the July/August 2021 issue of Civil Engineering as “Preparing for Wind and Water.” 

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Emerging technologies, such as smart materials, advanced construction methods, and sensing technology, are being introduced to improve infrastructure performance and resilience. Developing and implementing these novel approaches will have a lasting impact on civil infrastructure moving forward.

A new paper, “Emerging Technologies for Resilient Infrastructure: Conspectus and Roadmap”, by Mahmoud Reda Taha, F.ASCE; Bilal M. Ayyub, Dist.M.ASCE; Kenichi Soga, M.ASCE; Sherif Daghash, A.M.ASCE, in the ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering, provides an in-depth summary of the state of the art of ETs in civil engineering. Read about their ET roadmap and how we can include them in future infrastructure in the abstract below, or by reading the full paper in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

Emerging technologies (ETs) are increasingly becoming more accessible, and as they make their way into the field will be an integral part of the engineering community’s work that impacts future civil infrastructure. In the meantime, infrastructure resilience has become a recurring theme in government and industry discussions. ETs are expected to contribute to improving infrastructure resilience capacities, namely, absorptive, adaptive, and restorative. Through an extensive literature review, an in-depth conspectus of the state of the art of ETs in civil engineering is provided, leading to a vision for how these technologies impact infrastructure resilience. Three distinct disruptive technologies that can impact infrastructure resilience are demonstrated—specifically, smart materials, advanced construction technology, and advanced sensing technology. Such ETs will remarkably affect the well-known four characteristic elements of infrastructure resilience: redundancy, robustness, rapidity, and resourcefulness. These innovative technologies will warrant infrastructure to withstand or efficiently recover from multihazard disruptive events, leading to improved resilience. A roadmap to field implementation is presented considering the financial cycles necessary for ETs to make an impact on infrastructure resilience.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/AJRUA6.0001134

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Sponsored by the ASCE Infrastructure Resilience Division and edited by Bilal M. Ayyub, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, Hazard-Resilient Infrastructure: Analysis and Design, MOP 144, provides guidance and an underlying framework for designing new infrastructure systems with consistency across hazards, systems, and sectors.

“We designed this manual of practice to help foster consistent and coordinated infrastructure systems,” Ayyub said. “The most important thing we can achieve is the building of resilient communities.”

It’s that idea of consistency that is new or at least more greatly emphasized in the civil engineering industry now compared to 10 years ago, according to Ayyub.

“Consistency is the major driver,” Ayyub said. “All of the systems that we are dealing with – whether it’s transportation, water, or power – must be maintained at appropriate levels to achieve community resilience. In the past, I’m not sure consistency received the same amount of attention. Consistency and coordination across sectors, but also across hazards, is essential.”

MOP 144 uses probabilistic methods for risk analysis and management of infrastructure projects; an approach that includes identifying and analyzing hazards, system failures, the economics of resilience, and technologies for enhancing new and existing infrastructure.

Ayyub edited another ASCE manual of practice for publication in 2018, Climate-Resilient Infrastructure: Adaptive Design and Risk Management, prepared by the ASCE Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate. And while the two manuals are not explicitly related, Ayyub does see them as being part of a continuum of sorts, with more MOPs potentially in the works.

“I think it makes sense to approach and implement the subject broadly across multi-hazards and multi-systems,” Ayyub said. “It’s an ambitious undertaking that will require many years.”

Ayyub, who serves as the director of the Center for Technology and Systems Management of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland, said he has seen the industry increasingly embrace these resilience concepts in recent years. Many of the case studies and visuals in the manual of practice derived from the participation of major civil engineering firms.

“I know from our interactions with these companies, they were keenly interested. They think that this is the way of the future,” Ayyub said. “And they are businesses after all, so they see the business side of it. They see there is a need for resilience; there is a demand.”

Learn more about Hazard-Resilient Infrastructure: Analysis and Design, MOP 144.

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A new paper in the International Journal of Geomechanics, “Earth Pressures on Retaining Walls Backfilled with Sand Admixed with Building Derived Materials: Laboratory Scale Study,” by Jayatheja Muktinutalapati, S.M.ASCE; and Anasua GuhaRay, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE, looks specifically at replacing sand with waste materials in a retaining wall. Using both experimental and numerical studies, the authors evaluated the magnitude and distribution of earth pressure on a retaining wall and observed the effectiveness of using building waste as a partial replacement of backfill soil. Learn more about their findings and recommendations in the abstract below, or by reading the full paper in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

Earth retaining structures are constructed to withstand lateral pressure from backfill soil and surcharge pressures from the foundations of adjacent structures. Although sands are considered as the most suitable backfill material for retaining walls due to their high permeability, currently the scarcity of this natural material has raised serious environmental concerns. This study will propose the usage of building derived materials (BDM) as a partial replacement for sand as backfill material for the retaining walls. The utilization of this waste material will help to reduce the cost related to the disposal of waste materials, as well as reducing the carbon footprint, therefore making the process eco-friendly and sustainable. Experimental studies will be conducted on a laboratory scale prototype rigid, nonyielding retaining wall, which can rotate about its base to simulate rotational failure conditions. The width of the backfill was 0.35, 0.5, and 0.65H to assess its effect on the variation of earth pressures (H = height of the retaining wall). The experimental results indicate that the earth pressures were not significantly enhanced by the addition of BDM to sand, which suggests that BDM could be used as an effective lightweight backfill. The optimum pressure was obtained by mixing 20% of BDM with red soil. For backfills that had sufficient widths, the failure surfaces had adequate space to fully develop, whereas it had a limited extension in a narrow backfill. An increase in backfill width (b) decreased the rotation of the wall, therefore reducing the probability of rotational failure. Numerical simulations using finite element software PLAXIS 2D are conducted with the experiments to validate the observations. The numerical results suggest good agreement with that of experimental results.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0002030

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The city of Sacramento, California, is regenerating and upgrading its historic train station as part of a plan for a 31-acre multimodal transportation hub centered on the core tenet of sustainability. The goal is for the project to be carbon net-positive, going beyond a carbon net-zero classification.

The Sacramento Valley Station, located at Fourth and I streets, is the primary passenger rail station for Northern California, as it has been since its opening 95 years ago. It is currently the United States’ seventh-busiest Amtrak station, according to the city.

Despite its importance to rail travel in the state, the station’s experience was less than ideal for travelers. The station was purchased by the city in 2006, and a plan to create a fully integrated intermodal facility at and around it is underway. Currently referred to as the Sacramento Intermodal Transit Facility, the transportation hub will provide connections among numerous modes of transportation: train, light rail, bus, bicycle, foot, taxi, and automobile.

It will also be part of a mixed-use project — the Sacramento Valley Station Area Plan — that will create a walkable, livable area that will strengthen the connections between the city’s historic riverfront area known as Old Sacramento, downtown Sacramento, and the emerging 240-acre Railyards district located to the north of the station. The plan includes market-rate and affordable housing as well as office, hotel, and community space and amenities such as restaurants, shops, pedestrian plazas, and bike trails.

The plan — and its goal to turn the historic train station into one of the most sustainable public places in California — has earned a “coveted and rigorous certification for environmental innovation,” according to information released by Perkins&Will, which led the project along with the city of Sacramento. The project received Living Community Challenge Certification from the International Living Future Institute, an organization dedicated to creating symbiotic relationships between people and the built environment in seven key metrics: place, water, energy, health and happiness, materials, equity, and beauty.

As part of that goal, biophilic design will be used — wherein natural elements and systems will be incorporated into the bikeable and pedestrian-friendly design. Trees will be placed to provide shade canopies to mitigate urban heat island effects and provide cooler and cleaner air. Native species will be provided with habitat space, a community garden will allow residents to grow food on-site, and community open space will provide recreation space for visitors and residents.

The buildings on the site will be powered with 100% renewable energy with a combination of on-site generation and off-site sourcing. Wastewater will be recycled on-site and then reused to meet the community’s nonpotable water needs, and low-impact development practices will be used to manage stormwater.

Partners on the project include global engineering firm Arup, Grimshaw Architects, Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates Inc., Economic & Planning Systems Inc., and AIM Consulting.

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Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector is a 224-page report that implores all nations to immediately and extensively deploy existing clean and efficient energy technologies, including solar, wind, and nuclear power as well as electric vehicles, while reducing their reliance on fossil fuels to dramatically decrease CO₂ emissions over the next decade. It also urges governments to significantly increase investments in the rapid development of emerging and new technologies, including advanced batteries and hydrogen applications, to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 — actions that the IEA says will also bolster the economy, including adding jobs to the building and construction sectors.

“There is a growing gap between the rhetoric we hear from governments (and) industry and what is happening in real life,” said Fatih Birol, Ph.D., executive director of the intergovernmental IEA, during a May 18 press conference to launch the report. “We hear a lot of commitments, a lot of pledges, but the emissions aren’t going down.” As such, the IEA decided to create a road map for the global energy sector. “We came up with more than 400 milestones — what governments need to do and when they need to do it — so that we can reach our climate targets,” Birol said.

Existing technologies

To start, the road map calls for unprecedented action to drive consumer spending and industry investment toward available clean energy technologies over the next 10 years. “We find that the pathway to net zero is narrow but still feasible,” said Laura Cozzi, chief energy modeler for the IEA, during the press conference.

“We really call (the next 10 years) the decade of massive clean energy expansion,” Cozzi said. “The good news is that … we have all of the technologies that we need to cut emissions by 13 Gt.”

The IEA envisions most of these cuts coming from the power sector. The report calls for bringing an additional 390 GW of wind energy and 630 GW of solar photovoltaics online annually by 2030 — four times the already record levels set in 2020. “We need a huge push of solar energy,” said Cozzi, noting that 250 GW of solar PVs were installed around the globe in 2020, but that amount needs to be quadrupled by 2030. “Quadrupling is something that the solar industry is accustomed to. It’s what they achieved last decade, so we need to replicate (that),” she said.

In addition to expanding wind and solar energy sources, the report calls on governments to enact policies for retrofitting buildings with clean energy technologies. This includes replacing fossil fuel boilers with such technology as heat pumps, bioenergy boilers, solar thermal, district heat, low-carbon gases, or hydrogen fuel cells to propel a 40% decrease in building emissions by 2030, the report states. “One in every five buildings needs to be retrofitted,” Cozzi explained. “We have the technologies; we know how to retrofit buildings. We just need to make sure that there is policy that is very intensive to go about this very quickly.”

Other existing emissions-reducing technologies that governments must ensure are more broadly deployed over the decade include electric vehicles. For net-zero emissions to remain achievable by 2050, electric vehicle sales must rise from 5% to 60% of global car sales by 2030, the report states. In other words, the increase in electric passenger car sales must be 20 times higher this decade than the increase in internal combustion engine car sales was over the last 10 years, according to the report.

New technologies

As countries deploy available clean energy technologies over the decade, the report recommends that they simultaneously increase investments in new solutions — including advanced batteries, hydrogen electrolyzers, and direct-air CO₂ capture and storage — which will account for more than half the CO₂ emission reductions needed to reach net zero in 2050. It also calls for investments in pipelines to transport captured CO₂ emissions and move hydrogen between ports and industrial zones. “We need to push the magic button of innovation,” Birol said. “We need (new) technologies to help us, especially around and after 2030 to reduce the emissions.”

Roughly $25 billion in public money is currently budgeted for clean energy demonstration projects over the decade. The report calls for increasing this number to $90 billion to complete a portfolio of these projects by 2030. In fact, the report recommends that global annual energy investments swell from a global average of $2.3 trillion today to $5 trillion by 2030, with a focus on clean energy, Birol said. “Today, investment numbers are dominated by fossil fuels, and by 2030, it should be dominated by clean energy options,” he said, noting that a historical surge for investments is needed to make this transformation in the energy system.

In addition to creating new energy technologies, these actions will develop major new industries as well as commercial and employment opportunities, the report states. The International Monetary Fund projects that the $5 trillion in energy investments outlined in the report would result in an additional 0.4% annual increase in global gross domestic product. “We calculate that this all together makes about 30 million additional jobs created,” Birol said. “But at the same time, we see that about 5 million jobs are lost, especially those who are dealing with the fossil fuel production or technologies related to fossil fuel.”

International cooperation

Although the IEA report offers a defined approach for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, it is not the only way to achieve this goal, stressed Timur Gul, head of the IEA’s energy technology policy division, during the press conference. “Our scenario is a pathway and not the pathway to net-zero emissions by the year 2050,” he said. “We do hope, though, that our report — with the details, the pragmatic recommendations that it sets out — will inform and stimulate the debate on how our collective climate goals can be achieved.”

The important thing is that all countries, citizens, and industries do their part to achieve net zero, Gul said. “We need to bring international cooperation to new heights, accelerating innovation, developing international standards, (and) coordinating to scale up technologies in such a way that (it) links the national markets,” he said, adding that if international cooperation is not heightened to this scale, the world will have no shot at achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

Birol echoed these comments and evoked the United Nations’ “Race to Zero” campaign to call on all countries to join forces to address the climate crisis. “The race is not between countries, but the race is against time,” he said. “Unless all the governments finish the race, nobody can win.”

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The South Wetlands Park project encompasses Philadelphia’s piers 64, 67, 68, and 70, roughly between Tasker Street and Pier 70 Boulevard. A former industrial site, the area now includes various retail stores and restaurants. Although Pier 68 was converted into a popular fishing pier in 2015, the other three piers are in various stages of decay and collapse. The park project plans to reuse what portions of the piers can be safely restored and link the piers with an elevated, curving boardwalk that will, in places, be supported on the piers’ original timber piles, explains Michael Miller, an associate at OLIN, a landscape architecture firm with offices in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Unusable sections of the piers will be demolished. Material from the original piers might also be reused on the new park structures — for example to build a large, stepped seating element on Pier 67, explains an executive summary of the project by OLIN and the DRWC.

Abandoned structures

OLIN is leading the design of the wetlands park project, which is an outgrowth of the DRWC’s 2012 “Master Plan for the Central Delaware,” says Miller.

Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based McLaren Engineering Group provided structural evaluations of the existing piers, using underwater inspections, and conducted studies on the effects that sea level rise, high tides, and coastal wave action will have on the piers over the coming decades as well as the potential impacts of major storm events.

Piers 64, 67, and 70 are primarily wooden structures with steel and concrete sections that date to the early 20th century. But as the factories in the region shut down over time, the piers were largely abandoned, notes Todd Manson, P.E., M.ASCE, a senior associate at McLaren and the firm’s lead coastal engineer. Located close to the water surface, the piers are topped by soil and over the years have become heavily vegetated with trees and other plants. In some cases, Miller adds, the tree roots are the only things holding the piers together.

Diving for data

McLaren examined the structures using divers with surface-supplied air and studied the potential of sea level rise, wave action, and other factors by studying historical data from existing gauges in the Delaware River, considering reports and projections on the expected impacts from climate change in the region, says Manson.

The project team studied the effects of high tides on the piers today and over the next 45-60 years. It also considered the effects of a 100-year storm event and a 500-year storm event as well as a 100-year storm event happening 60 years from now. Illustrations created for the public show the relatively modest overtopping of the piers that can occur during high tides today, the more pronounced overtopping that can be expected by 2050, and the near total inundation of piers 67 and 70 that can be expected by 2080.

3D views

Although the project team initially held in-person public meetings to explain the wetlands park plans, such events became impossible because of the COVID-19 pandemic, says Miller. In addition, realizing that a virtual meeting on a set day at a designated time might not work with the schedules of everyone it wanted to reach, OLIN’s team sought a solution that “people could interact with on their own time and then provide feedback by responding to a survey,” explains Miller.

The result was a unique 3D walk-through model that was developed by Evan McNaught, an OLIN landscape designer. The model was created through various software systems — including the 3D platform created by Paris-based Sketchfab; Rhinoceros 3D, from Robert McNeel & Associates, of Seattle; and Blender, from the Amsterdam-based Blender Foundation — combined with topographic information from existing lidar surveys, bathymetric information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, real-time kinematic surveying data, and other sources, says Miller.

By the numbers

Located on the DRWC website, the model provides 19 annotated descriptions of the park’s features and amenities through written information — in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian — photographs, and digital images that can be rotated and viewed from various angles, even underwater.

The clickable points on the model focus on the proposed structures, such as a boathouse and boat launch for kayaks and canoes as well as the kayak channel that will be cut through a deteriorated section of Pier 67. The model explores the stone breakwaters and a wave screen, which will be designed to “reduce wave energy coming into the site and calm the water behind it, allowing for suitable vegetation to better grow and develop,” notes Manson.

The various habitats for plants and aquatic life that will be created are also explained. These will range — in degrees of how wet the vegetation likes to get — from upland plants that only get wet during the largest floods, through wet meadows, emergent wetlands, floating wetlands, and ultimately to the submerged aquatic vegetation that grows completely underwater, providing habitats for fish and other aquatic life.

Moving forward

The next step for the wetlands park project involves environmental assessment and permitting as well as fundraising by the DRWC, notes Miller. The project is ultimately expected to cost more than $27 million.

When construction eventually begins, the project will be completed in phases, likely starting with the work on Pier 70, the boat launch, and the boardwalk connecting Pier 70 to Pier 68. According to the OLIN/DRWC executive summary, phasing will allow for the park “to be built as funds become available.” But “it also provides the opportunity for learning through monitoring and adaptive management. Creating a freshwater tidal wetland on an urban river is a new and innovative endeavor, so future phases will benefit from the findings of the Phase 1 project.”

The post Philadelphia to turn crumbling piers into a waterfront park appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

Authors D. Bolkas, B. Naberezny, and M. G. Jacobson used point cloud data from a mine reclamation project in Brisbin, Pennsylvania that employed deep tillage methods to improve soil structure. Practitioners considering using multiepoch and multiplatform point clouds for similar change estimation projects will benefit from this research. Learn more in the abstract below or read the full paper in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

Agricultural and forestry operations significantly affect land morphology. Monitoring topographical and morphological changes is important in agriculture, forestry geomorphology, and soil sciences for improving land management. Tillage is one of the most common land management methods, which aims at loosening the soil and optimizing edaphological conditions. This paper used point cloud data from a mine reclamation project in Brisbin, Pennsylvania that employed deep tillage methods to improve soil structure. In recent years, point cloud technologies such as small unmanned aerial system (sUAS) photogrammetry often has been used to support agricultural and forestry operations, and to provide detail estimation of land morphological changes. This paper assessed the effectiveness of sUAS and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) to estimate changes in soil surface elevations after deep tillage treatment. A traditional survey with total stations was used as a reference to assess the performance of each method and gain insights. Several parameters that affect the accuracy of such multiepoch surveys were examined, including georeferencing, sUAS camera self-calibration, sUAS software, ground classification methods, the effect of vegetation on point cloud accuracy, the effect of distance from scanner on TLS point cloud accuracy, and merging scenarios to utilize the advantages of both sensors. Results indicated that in areas with low vegetation, both methods can provide reliable land surface estimation; however, in areas with dense and high vegetation, the two methods had considerable vegetation penetration issues. In TLS surveys, the error increased with increasing distance from a scanner setup. TLS achieved higher accuracy than sUAS surveys up to 5 m from a scanner setup, whereas at distances between 5 and 10 m from a scanner setup, accuracy was comparable for the two methods, and beyond 10 m from a scanner setup sUAS achieved better accuracy than TLS. Furthermore, this paper investigated the benefit of using a prior camera self-calibration, estimated on the same site from the first sUAS data set before tillage, versus estimating a new self-calibration for the second sUAS data sets after tillage. Results showed that a prior self-calibration is essential when the number of ground control points (GCPs) is low, i.e., fewer than four GCPs when Global Navigation Satellite System real-time kinematic (GNSS-RTK) is available, and fewer than eight GCPs when GNSS-RTK is not available. Insights gained from this study can assist in improving surveying planning, and they are important to surveyors and practitioners who are employed in agricultural and forestry applications.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)SU.1943-5428.0000346

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The campus will be designed according to 3deluxe’s 50/50 concept, which is that all building projects should give back just as much substance to nature as they take from it. As a result, half of all building space would be dedicated to nature-oriented biotopes. “The quality of life in the cities would be enormously improved in every respect” with these designs, according to the architects. Air quality would improve, the traditional heat-island effects of urban environments would decrease, and the enjoyment of nature would be possible within cities.

The floating campus would be mobile and, thus, unaffected by rising sea levels. It would include public areas for sports and leisure, a transition area at the center of the campus with a meadow and a beach, and facilities that could be used for meetings and educational events. The goal is that the complex will be an example of what life, community, and work could look like in the future. 

Natural and recycled materials would be used to create the buildings, and green roofs would be used to boost the availability of natural habitats.

Additional floating platforms could be added to expand the available green spaces and parks along the city’s shoreline, holding, for example, a looped running track through and surrounded by wetlands. The campuses could be attached to a shoreline pier or each other, or anchored within the harbor as individual islands.

The campus is envisioned as being entirely self-sufficient, generating its own energy and producing its own water. Bioluminescent bacteria that convert methane gas into energy could be used as a light source at night. In addition, wind turbines, photovoltaics, and specialty marine turbines under the platform designed to work with slow-moving water would generate energy, while algae bioreactors and oyster farms would naturally scrub pollutants from water.

This article first appeared in the May/June 2021 issue of Civil Engineering as “Urban Nature.”

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A multistory, “leaning” library with a rounded footprint has been designed for Songdo International City, a tech-based, intellectual, eco-city located 56 km from Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Submitted by Beijing-based architectural firm aoe as part of an international competition for the city’s new public library and cultural center, the design reimagines libraries for the 21st century, incorporating sustainable design with the needs and comfort of users. The building includes spaces for the typical reading and learning experiences that are expected of public libraries as well as gathering, exhibition, and venue spaces for indoor and outdoor community gatherings.

Inside the building, two key spaces will be carved out for users. A multilevel cascading reading hall with broad, angled windows will be on the south-facing side of the building, offering extensive views of nature. A community living hall for gathering and holding events and exhibitions will be on the north-facing side with views of the city. Additional spaces will include an auditorium and community classrooms.

The library was designed as a landmark building for the city and to offer space for residents and tourists to enjoy. The rounded footprint maximizes access points from the surrounding community and open space around the building that can be used for gatherings while minimizing the impact the new building would have on a neighboring kindergarten. A striking 18.5-degree visual “lean” to the south gives a signature look to the glass and charred wood-clad structure while protecting the south-facing interiors from solar gain in summer and maximizing thermal gain in the winter.

Maximizing natural ventilation and recycling the energy used in the building will also be part of the structure’s sustainable design elements.

Structurally, the building will utilize a concrete core wall with a cantilever-truss system. Just four diagonal structural columns will be necessary for bracing, which will enable the extensive open interior spaces.

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To be located in the tiny city of Mendota, California, in the state’s Central Valley, the facility is backed by such deep-pocketed investors as the energy giant Chevron Corp. and the tech behemoth Microsoft Corp.

A ‘groundbreaking’ project

In addition to Chevron and Microsoft, the project is being developed by Schlumberger New Energy — a division of the energy-technology provider Schlumberger Ltd. — and Clean Energy Systems, a maker of combustion systems that produce gases for use in electrical power generation or industrial processes. By combining bioenergy production, which uses a product, biomass, that itself absorbs carbon dioxide over its lifetime, with carbon capture and sequestration, the “groundbreaking” project will be “designed to produce carbon negative power,” according to a March 4 news release issued by Chevron, Schlumberger New Energy, and Clean Energy Systems.

In the first step in the generation process, waste biomass from nearby agricultural operations will be converted into a synthesis gas by means of commercially available gasification equipment and processes, says Rebecca Hollis, the director of business development for Clean Energy Systems. In turn, the gas will be burned with nearly pure oxygen in the company’s proprietary combustion system referred to as both the Oxy-Combustor and as a direct steam generator. Based on rocket-propulsion technology, the oxy-fuel combustion technology produces a “hot drive gas” comprising predominantly steam and carbon dioxide, though other trace elements may be present, Hollis says.

The steam then is used to power turbines, which generate electricity. “After expansion through a power turbine, the steam is cooled and condensed, leaving separate streams of water and carbon dioxide gas,” Hollis notes. Because it uses pure oxygen rather than air, the combustion system does not release nitrogen, unlike typical combustion systems. As a result, the process “leads to cost-effective carbon capture,” Hollis says.

Near total carbon capture

In this way, the planned facility will sequester essentially all carbon dioxide involved with the generation process. “More than 99% of the carbon from the BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration) process is expected to be captured for permanent storage by injecting carbon dioxide underground into nearby deep geologic formations,” the release explains. Upon completion, the facility is expected to remove about 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, an amount that is equivalent to the emissions from the electricity used by more than 65,000 U.S. homes, according to the release.

The project entails retrofitting an existing industrial site that once served as a biomass-based power plant. Formerly operated by the waste-to-energy firm Covanta, the facility was idled in 2015, says Sean Comey, a senior adviser for external affairs for Chevron. Given its previous use, the site affords certain benefits, including “usable infrastructure and appropriate zoning,” Comey notes. What is more, the “underlying geology is well suited for permanently storing carbon dioxide,” he says.

The carbon dioxide that is captured as part of the energy generation process will be “stored nearly 10,000 ft below the surface, beneath multiple layers of confining earth,” Comey says.

Improved air quality

By providing an alternative to the practice of open burning of agricultural waste, the facility also could help improve air quality in California’s Central Valley. Expected to use on the order of 200,000 tons of agricultural waste annually, the facility will be equipped with technology that is “designed to operate without routine emissions of nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, and particulates from combustion produced by conventional biomass plants,” the release states.

Power generated by the turbines will be used to “run the plant and deliver electricity to the electrical grid,” Comey says. “The plant is designed to export about 5 megawatts per hour of electricity (more than 43 gigawatts annually),” he notes.

Modifications to be conducted as part of the project will include integrating the oxy-combustion technology into the existing facility and adding systems for biomass gasification, oxygen supply, and carbon dioxide capture and storage, Hollis says.

Although the companies indicated that they plan to begin engineering and design immediately, they declined to identify the engineering, procurement, and construction firm that has been hired to design the conversion of the existing biomass plant to the BECCS facility. The companies, which also would not reveal the cost of the project, will make a “final investment decision in 2022,” according to the release.

If the project gets the green light and works as planned, it could provide a template for similar carbon-negative energy facilities elsewhere, Comey says. “We believe this project can be a pilot program that could be replicated in other locations to produce energy that also removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere,” he says.

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A new paper in the Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering uses aerial images to provide new insight into temporal and special distribution of catchment-scale peatland drainage. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study presenting methods for quantifying drainage history in catchments dominated by peatland forestry. Learn about it in “Development of Aerial Photos and LIDAR Data Approaches to Map Spatial and Temporal Evolution of Ditch Networks in Peat-Dominated Catchments” by Joy Bhattacharjee; Hannu Marttila; Ali Torabi Haghighi; Miia Saarimaa; Anne Tolvanen; Ahti Lepistö; Martyn N. Futter; and Bjørn Kløve. Read the abstract below, then the full paper in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

Spatiotemporal information on historical peatland drainage is needed to relate past land use to observed changes in catchment hydrology. Comprehensive knowledge of historical development of peatland management is largely unknown at the catchment scale. Aerial photos and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) data enlarge the possibilities for identifying past peatland drainage patterns. Here, our objectives are (1) to develop techniques for semiautomatically mapping the location of ditch networks in peat-dominated catchments using aerial photos and LIDAR data, and (2) to generate time series of drainage networks. Our approaches provide open-access techniques to systematically map ditches in peat-dominated catchments through time. We focused on the algorithm in such a way that we can identify the ditch networks from raw aerial images and LIDAR data based on the modification of multiple filters and number of threshold values. Such data are needed to relate spatiotemporal drainage patterns to observed changes in many northern rivers. We demonstrate our approach using data from the Simojoki River catchment (3,160  km2) in northern Finland. The catchment is dominated by forests and peatlands that were almost all drained after 1960. For two representative locations in cultivated peatland (downstream) and peatland forest (upstream) areas of the catchment; we found total ditch length density (km/km2), estimated from aerial images and LIDAR data based on our proposed algorithm, to have varied from 2% to 50% compared with the monitored ditch length available from the National Land survey of Finland (NLSF) in 2018. A different pattern of source variation in ditch network density was observed for whole-catchment estimates and for the available drained-peatland database from Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE). Despite such differences, no significant differences were found using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test with a 0.05 significance level based on the samples of pixel-identified ditches between (1) aerial images and NLSF vector files and (2) LIDAR data and NLSF vector files.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0001547

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The site was used as a Department of Sanitation facility for a number of years, though DSNY vacated the site in 2015. With the exception of a Fire Department of New York facility on the northwest corner of the site, the city’s Department of Design and Construction demolished the existing buildings on the site, which was then transferred to the Hudson River Park Trust in 2018.

Design work on the park began in 2019 by landscape architecture firm James Corner Field Operations.

Varied program

The park will be located across from the Whitney Museum of American Art and between Gansevoort Street and Little West 12th Street. The proximity to the river led designers to try to bring the “materiality of the river into the park,” says Karen Tamir, RLA, a principal at JCFO. That means using “salvaged granite bulkhead blocks, riprap, granite blocks, and aggregate as well as having tidal pools.” Granite blocks, sand, and sand-loving plant species will help visitors feel like they’re even closer to the river.

The park will include a lawn and seating area, a large sports field, a dog run, a beach, and three small buildings housing concessions and restrooms. The western edge of the peninsula acts like a promenade that is meant to “provide a hint” of the old 13th Avenue.

“We tried to design that (area) to be reminiscent of a historic New York street,” says Cricket Day, a JCFO associate. The design for this area includes the use of granite cobble paving and London plane trees.

The standout features of the new park will be located on its edges. On the south edge will be the Hudson park system’s first beach. Roughly 60 ft by 250 ft, the beach will feature, on average, more than 3 ft of sand over filter fabric and a gravel subbase. A slope at the edge of the beach has granite ledges, which help hold it in place and provide kayakers a place to perch and take breathers on trips up and down the Hudson.

The Whitney is also building for the park a large sculpture — Day’s End by artist David Hammons — which the park’s trust bills as one of the country’s largest public art projects. The installation will be a skeletal stainless steel “ghost monument” to the river’s historical pier sheds and will be built in the water along the peninsula’s southern edge.

Restoring ecosystem

The northern edge the park will provide an ecological habitat in the form of a salt marsh. “The northern portion of the peninsula presented itself as a good opportunity because the peninsula itself acts as breakwater,” adds Sanjukta Sen, a senior associate with JCFO. “It has the optimum wave conditions, where a salt marsh could establish and thrive over time.”

“This is part of the movement to soften and naturalize our river edges in general,” says Eric Rothstein, a managing partner at eDesign Dynamics, a water resources engineering firm. “That’s a global trend now. Previously everything was bulkheaded with concrete, and now it has been realized that that approach isn’t good for resiliency, and it certainly isn’t good for habitat. This is one of many attempts to re-soften the edge.”

Salt marsh is one of the core ecosystems in the Hudson River Estuary that was historically destroyed with development. With the new edge that will be part of the park, a peat layer will build up over time as the salt marsh plants die back and regrow seasonally. This peat layer will ultimately attract aquatic life like crabs and mussels that will chew on the layer and attach to it, creating a substrate that will serve as a foundation for rebuilding the local ecosystem. “What’s great about that is it’s a real engine for ecosystems,” Rothstein says.

Rothstein likens salt marshes to little kidneys that can filter nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus out of the water. They also help make the waterfront more resilient. “We’re always talking about designing for sea level rise. As the plants die back seasonally and the peat grows, the marsh is going to move up, so it’s kind of like this built-in system to address sea level rise.”

A stone barrier on north side will also dissipate wave energy on that side of the site

The salt marsh will be about a third of an acre. It might not sound like much, but Rothstein says the marsh will help build a key ecosystem for migratory birds and aquatic life. “The critters have been waiting for this to happen,” he says.

Balancing construction and design needs

The first part of construction on the $70 million project, paid for with a combination of city and Hudson River Park Trust funds, began on March 23 and involves laying fill to pre-load the site. After a wait of 14 weeks to ensure the fill settles properly, construction on the southern half of the park will begin. Construction on the north and south park edges will begin concurrently later this spring. Work on the remaining sections of the park will begin by the end of the year, with the entire peninsula planned for completion in approximately two years.

Engineers at Philip Habib & Associates had to figure out how to provide vehicular access to the site while still preserving the integrity of JCFO’s design. “We’re flanked by city streets with city infrastructure — city sewers — so having to design around these functioning utilities while providing the required access was one of the more difficult things,” says Sue McCoy, P.E., a principal with the firm.

One move was to design a concrete base underneath the park’s wooden boardwalks in order to withstand vehicle loads. The firm is also working on balancing the need for 24-hour access to the FDNY facility while providing security protections, including bollards and gates, for the bikeway that forms the eastern border of the park along West Street.

Planning the design followed a period of robust community engagement; a central challenge was to try to synthesize competing demands for active space and passive space and to create a park that functions both as a regional draw and a spot for locals. “We have to design it to be both,” says Adams. “Tourists and people around the city come here, but (locals also) consider it their backyard.”

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Achieving these targets will require a fundamental realignment of how the privately owned, approximately 1,850-person company operates both internally and externally. In particular, Buro Happold — which has its headquarters in Bath, England, United Kingdom — will have to contend with the challenging question of how to reduce so-called embodied carbon, or the carbon emissions associated with materials used during project construction.

In January, Buro Happold released its Global Sustainability Report: Innovating to meet net zero, which outlines its agenda for addressing climate change in the near term and in the coming decades. “Buro Happold is at the forefront of the drive to reduce the whole life carbon of the built environment,” the Global Sustainability Report states. “We are helping private sector clients to embed similar targets across their development portfolios and deliver solutions on their projects.”

Leading the way

“We must lead the way in addressing the climate emergency,” says David Herd, Buro Happold’s managing partner for California. Between now and 2030, “there’s going to be a massive acceleration” in the adoption of measures to address climate change, he says. “As leaders in that field, it’s only right that we set our own progressive targets.”

“In leading the way and solving the problem, we are demonstrating our commitment and determining the path forward for our clients,” Herd says.

To this end, Buro Happold lists the following targets in its Global Sustainability Report for achieving net-zero carbon status:

• Reducing its own operational carbon emissions by 21% by 2025 while implementing a carbon offset policy beginning in April 2021 to account for residual emissions.
• Designing all new build projects to be net-zero carbon in operation by 2030 while ensuring that all projects are net-zero carbon in operation by 2050.
• Reducing the embodied carbon intensity of all new buildings, major retrofits, and infrastructure projects by 50% by 2030.
• Providing a design workshop for every project to focus on lowering its embodied carbon.
• Measuring the embodied carbon associated with the company’s scope within all of its building and infrastructure projects having a fee value of more than 50,000 pounds ($69,000).

Buro Happold is part of a “growing number of companies setting net-zero targets,” says Cynthia Cummis, the director of private sector climate mitigation for the World Resources Institute. “If done creditably, it is the highest level of ambition for climate target setting. That’s what we want to see companies do.”

WRI is one of a handful of entities jointly developing the Science Based Targets initiative, an effort to standardize climate targets to ensure worldwide consistency. The initiative also aims to help companies determine how to achieve “science-based” targets, meaning changes that are in line with what is needed to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Buro Happold is a participant in the initiative.

For corporate climate reduction goals to be meaningful, they must include short- and long-term targets, Cummis says. Five- to 15-year targets are ideal, she notes. “Those are the ones that we think companies should focus on first,” Cummis says.

Accounting for emissions

In its report, Buro Happold provides estimates of its global carbon footprint for its fiscal year from May 2019 to April 2020. During this time, the company generated an estimated 6,279 absolute metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, amounting to a 6% decrease compared with the previous fiscal year, according to the report. Buro Happold offset this total by 277 absolute metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions through the purchase of renewable energy, the report notes. (Absolute in this context refers to total greenhouse gas emissions).

Almost 50% of the company’s carbon dioxide emissions took the form of “indirect” emissions associated with business travel, the report notes. Nearly a quarter of the remaining carbon dioxide emissions (1,508 absolute metric tons) involved such other indirect sources as suppliers, hotels, and waste. The remaining emissions resulted from the indirect sources of commuter travel (833 metric tons) and purchased electricity and heat (695 metric tons) as well as 130 metric tons of “direct” emissions from gas and vehicles owned by the company, according to the report.

Buro Happold intends to achieve net-zero carbon status for its operational emissions by the end of its current fiscal year, which ends April 30, according to the report. For its U.K. operations, the company procures 100% of its electricity consumption through Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin, a mechanism for verifying that electricity originates from renewable sources. All remaining energy consumption will be offset by other carbon-offset schemes, the report states.

As for how it will reduce its operational carbon emissions by 21% by 2025, Buro Happold is “developing these plans in more detail,” according to a statement provided by the company. The approach to be taken will include a “commitment to science-based targets, setting annual business travel carbon budgets, and increasing home-based working,” the statement said.

The challenge of embodied carbon

To succeed at becoming a net-zero carbon company, Buro Happold must go beyond reducing the carbon emissions associated with its operations and a project’s operations and do more to address the challenge of embodied carbon. “We are now able to design buildings with near-zero operational emissions using high levels of insulation, zero carbon energy sources, and natural ventilation and cooling,” the company says in its Global Sustainability Report.

“However, the construction of a building requires the use of large volumes of material that create significant greenhouse gas emissions in their production,” the report states. “Because the in-use emissions can now be greatly reduced, these up-front emissions, embodied in the materials of construction, have become the dominant challenge for our engineers.”

To assist with the goal of reducing embodied carbon in design and construction, Buro Happold has developed a Life Cycle Analysis toolkit for assessing the embodied carbon associated with a given project, according to the Global Sustainability Report. “Embodied carbon training is being delivered across several disciplines so that clients can be provided with the best options for (minimizing) embodied carbon on their projects,” the report states.

Such a focus on reducing embodied carbon is expected to drive “innovation in materials in structural engineering,” Herd says. “How can you make concrete more sustainable? Can you use cross-laminated timber more?”

Detailing progress by dashboard

To monitor its progress in achieving its carbon-reduction goals, Buro Happold has developed an in-house building performance dashboard. To be rolled out in the 2021-22 fiscal year, the dashboard will display both modeled and measured energy consumption, operational carbon, and embodied carbon for all projects, according to the Global Sustainability Report.

With the dashboard in place, Buro Happold “will get real-time feedback as to how we’re trending toward achieving our goals,” Herd says. The data from the dashboard will provide valuable “business intelligence” for clients while helping Buro Happold move forward. “The information is going to drive decision-making,” Herd says.

Transforming the business

The drive to achieve net-zero carbon status is expected to affect essentially every aspect of Buro Happold’s business, including how the company designs and delivers projects. “First of all, it’s going to affect how we select what projects we undertake and the consultancy services we offer,” Herd says.

In the event that clients do not wish to focus on carbon reduction, Buro Happold would look to persuade them to reconsider, Herd notes. However, as the 2030 deadline nears, the company would have to reevaluate maintaining its relationships with clients that remain uninterested in reducing their carbon footprints. “It will potentially mean that there are clients we’re working with at the moment that we won’t be working with by 2030, because our goals and our mission are no longer aligned,” he says.

As part of efforts to achieve its carbon-reduction targets, Buro Happold is in the process of transforming the nature of the services it provides its clients, Herd says.

Rather than simply conducting traditional design work focused on a particular project, the company offers “strategic consultancy” services to clients that increasingly need help determining how to reduce the effects of climate change and carbon emissions across its entire global operations — from supply chains to transportation systems to real estate holdings, he says.

“The embedding of climate change targets will have a significant ripple effect on business operations and strategy for many companies,” Herd notes. “It’s an opportunity for us to provide leadership in strategy, stakeholder engagement, business intelligence, and data management consulting services.”

As a result, Buro Happold “has broadened our work from changing the world one building at a time to changing the world one organization at a time,” Herd explains. “We’re working with organizations to develop strategies, plans, and guidelines for implementation of climate change initiatives,” including efforts to improve resiliency and address vulnerabilities.

Such a shift in emphasis — particularly when it involves large, global companies, cities, counties, universities, and other public agencies — translates into exponentially greater carbon reduction as compared with an individual design project. “When consulting on the social, environmental, and economic footprint of a major corporation, city, or county, the impact you’re having is massive,” Herd says.

By engaging in such efforts as developing sustainability plans for Los Angeles County and other large areas, Buro Happold is positioned ultimately to exert a more profound effect, Herd says. “Traditionally, our work was design work,” Herd says. “Our impact was of a relatively modest scale on that one building. Now we’re developing plans that impact the lives of over 10 million people at a time.”

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In today’s Member Voices article, they look at the unique opportunity afforded by the upcoming infrastructure bill in Congress, presenting it as a chance to finally address the country’s need for climate-resilient infrastructure.

Finally, it looks like Infrastructure Week is going to happen. Decades of disinvestment gave the country an infrastructure system that recently earned a “C-” on ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. And this is before climate change accelerates.

Extreme weather is becoming more frequent and more intense, and the world is barreling toward a more volatile climate with infrastructure designed for the past. With infrastructure widely expected to be prioritized in Congress soon, we need to recognize that every infrastructure bill is also a climate bill. It is critical that we make our infrastructure climate safe.  

The Texas deep-freeze is fresh in our minds, but before long summer will be here, and our power systems will have to cope with extreme heat instead of extreme cold. During heatwaves, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants lose efficiency because of higher temperatures of the air and river water, and some plants have to shut down when it gets too hot. Droughts, low streamflow, and the earlier melting of winter snowpack affect how much power hydroelectric dams can produce. Even the efficiency of wind, solar power, and batteries are reduced in extreme heat. To make matters worse, power lines and equipment also become less efficient during a heat wave, limiting the amount of electricity they can carry. All this adds up to an electricity system that produces less power during extreme heatwaves, just when vulnerable populations need air-conditioning the most. 

But it’s not just the energy infrastructure that isn’t ready for climate change, it’s everything. Roads, water systems, dams, airports, and other infrastructure were mostly built decades ago for the temperatures and extreme storms of the past. Last year, there were 22 weather and climate disasters in the United States that each caused losses of more than a billion dollars. But instead of the government carrying insurance against these disasters, the public is the insurance – governments generally self-insure or under-insure their infrastructure against disaster costs. When a road is washed out during an extreme storm, we all pay to rebuild it, again and again. That’s a hidden carbon tax that we already pay, and these taxes are going up. Since the federal government often pays for some of the upfront costs of infrastructure for states and cities, it is time to start requiring that this infrastructure be built climate safe. 

Infrastructure lasts a long time, and most of the infrastructure that will be in use in 2050 and beyond is already here. That storm drain in the street? It may have been there for 50 years or more, and in many cases can’t carry the additional rain that falls now, and climate change will make this worse. Ninety-seven percent of the U.S. interstate highway system was built before NOAA started updating rainfall estimates in 2004, and 25% of the system was built before 1961. 

What is needed is a fundamental reimagining of our infrastructure for a warming and increasingly complex world. Our investments in infrastructure not only have to enable the rapid decarbonization of power, transportation, and buildings, but also must enable systems that are safe under the threats from climate change and which function across a mosaic of increasing volatility.

Strengthening our infrastructure is necessary, but so is thinking in new ways about what our infrastructure can do. For example, Kuala Lumpur’s SMART tunnel typically carries traffic but during flash flood events can help in the removal of stormwater. Green infrastructure, which funnels stormwater into the ground instead of into the street, should be a standard feature in most of our communities, but it’s not. These and other nature-based solutions integrated into traditional infrastructure can help alleviate extreme conditions. Because of increasing challenges from climate, as well as other threats such as cyber and physical attacks, it makes sense to plan for flexible infrastructure that can adapt under stress. And given the legacy of racism intertwined with infrastructure, the next systems that are built have to be climate safe for everybody, with equity and justice at the center of what it means to be resilient.

In the aftermath of the Texas energy infrastructure disaster, and the next disaster, political leaders may retreat to the trope of “nobody could have foreseen this.” But climate change and extreme event impacts are at least somewhat foreseeable – and they have been foreseen. What has been done about infrastructure and climate change – basically nothing – is also a policy choice, and it’s one with devastating consequences. It’s now time to build something for the future instead of the past.

Read more about a recent climate change bill in the House.

The post Now is (finally) the time to future-proof our infrastructure appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

The SEI Structural Engineers 2050 Commitment Program provides structural engineers with the tools and resources necessary to contribute and track projects toward the vision of net-zero embodied carbon structures by 2050.

The program was developed in response to the SE 2050 Challenge, put forth by the Carbon Leadership Forum, that states “All structural engineers shall understand, reduce, and ultimately eliminate embodied carbon in their projects by 2050.”

In response to the CLF challenge, the SEI Sustainability Committee has been developing the first national program focused on structural engineering firm commitments to achieve net-zero embodied carbon structures by the year 2050.

The SE 2050 Commitment Program is broken down into three strategies: plan, implement, and share.

After a structural firm formally signs onto the commitment, it creates an embodied carbon action plan, centered on four main topics: an embodied carbon education plan, a reporting plan, reduction strategies, and advocacy. Firms will then implement their action plan with the support of educational resources and tools accessible through SE2050.org.

Structural firms will input projects’ embodied carbon measurements into the SE 2050 database. After an adequate amount of embodied carbon data has been collected for different regions and building types, embodied carbon benchmarks and reduction targets will be developed.

To learn more about the SE 2050 Commitment Program and see the available embodied carbon resources available to structural engineers, visit SE2050.org.

To join the movement, structural engineering firms can commit at se2050.org/join-the-movement-overview.

The post SEI Structural Engineers 2050 Commitment Program takes aim at embodied carbon appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

Working with wood fibers at the nanoscale — at sizes approximately 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair — the University of Maryland researchers have developed nanocellulose-based products that are transparent, as strong as steel but six times lighter, and can help keep buildings cool, among various other benefits, explains Liangbing Hu, Ph.D., the Herbert Rabin Distinguished Professor in the University of Maryland’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the director of the university’s Center for Materials Innovation. Hu is also a co-founder of InventWood, a University of Maryland spinoff company working to develop markets for these new wood products.

Most recently, Hu and his colleagues published a research paper on a new technique to fabricate transparent wood, a product that often requires the use of an immersion bath of toxic chemicals to remove the light-absorbing polymer known as lignin, which is found in the cell wall of many plants. But the immersion method can impair the mechanical strength of the wood and generates a liquid waste that is difficult to recycle, according to the paper, “Solar-assisted fabrication of large-scale, patternable transparent wood,” which appeared in the Jan. 27 issue of the open-access scientific journal Science Advances.

Instead, Hu and his colleagues developed a technique that relies on a chemical brushing, rather than immersion, combined with an ultraviolet light illumination process to remove the light-absorbing chromophores of the lignin. This lignin-modified transparent wood “holds great potential in energy-efficient building applications,” among other uses, Hu and his co-authors concluded in the paper.

The team has also produced a nearly transparent wood product — akin to frosted glass — by replacing lignin with a clear epoxy.

Supported by an approximately $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, the University of Maryland researchers created a so-called super-wood product trademarked as MettleWood, which in tests proved strong enough to stop a speeding bullet. When the lignin is removed and the remaining material is compressed under high pressure, the result is a lightweight structural material with potential applications that range from automotive and aircraft components to bridge and building materials.

The University of Maryland research also produces a radiative cooling structural material that was tested at a farm in sun-drenched Arizona, where the product helped cool a structure by an average of 12 degrees Fahrenheit compared to natural wood, Hu says. As a Feb. 8 University of Maryland press release explained, the product is “pure white in the visual light spectrum, meaning that on building roofs, it doesn’t soak up the sun.” Paradoxically, it’s pure black in the invisible infrared spectrum, which helps it radiate heat back into outer space.

Hu and his colleagues have also researched techniques that convert wood to a squishy, bouncy material that might have applications as a shock absorber. They have also developed a process that could use wood inside a solar evaporator to help desalinate seawater.

The teams at the University of Maryland and InventWood have scaled the engineered wood from lab scale (typically about 10 by 20 cm) to pilot scale (1 by 3 ft), Hu notes. So he and his colleagues are actively seeking partners in government agencies and the manufacturing industry to create actual products to help “unlock the potential of this abundant material,” he explains.

The University of Maryland research works equally well with fibers from any type of tree, including faster-growing trees — such as poplars — that normally are not considered as desirable in terms of density and strength as slow-growing cedars or oaks, Hu notes. Other plants, including sugar cane and especially bamboo, generate strong, usable fibers, Hu adds.

Looking forward, Hu says the research can potentially replace some steel and concrete building materials with more sustainable, wood-based products. Moreover, since that will help make wood a more valuable commodity, he also hopes it will promote better forest management practices.

The post Would you believe what wood can achieve? appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

A new study in the Journal of Structural Engineering, “Incorporating Frame Action into Seismic Design of Gusset Plates” by Yao Cui, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE; Xiaozhuo Xu; Tracy C. Becker, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE; and Wei Zhang explores frame action forces on gusset plates. To improve the seismic performance of gusset plate designs by avoiding weld failure at the gusset plate interface, the study presents a method for incorporating both brace and frame action on gusset plate forces. Learn more in the abstract below and read the full recommendations in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

Gusset plates connect the brace and frame in concentrically braced frames (CBFs). Failure at the interface of gusset plates with the beam or column will result in an inability to achieve energy dissipation through brace buckling and yielding of the brace in tension and failure of the connection before the brace. Traditional design methods for the gusset plate beam or column interfaces in CBFs often consider only forces from brace action. Although studies have shown that forces from frame action can be significant, the complex stress distribution in the gusset plate makes it difficult to effectively evaluate their effects. Neglecting or inaccurately evaluating the frame action may result in unreasonable estimation of the forces in gusset plates, leading to failure at the interface connections. In this paper, the brace action and the frame action forces on gusset plates are systematically explored through an experimental test of CBFs. The proposed design method combines two models for brace action and frame action. Finally, the proposed design method is validated against results from CBF experiments. The proposed design method estimates the magnitude and orientation of the gusset plate interface forces with different configurations of CBFs well.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0002959.

The post New means of improving gusset plate design’s seismic performance appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

After it is built, the Delhi Noida International Airport at Jewar, in the India state of Uttar Pradesh, is anticipated to be India’s greenest airport, according to press material distributed by the passenger terminal’s architecture design team.

The architecture design team is a consortium comprising Nordic — Office of Architecture as well as Grimshaw, Haptic Architects, and STUP Consultants. The team’s design was selected after it competed in a three-phase design competition that took place during the pandemic’s multicountry lockdowns, necessitating that their collaboration and communication be done entirely remotely.

The government of Uttar Pradesh signed a concession agreement with Zurich Airport International AG (ZAIA), which won the contract to build the airport and operate it for 40 years.

The design team is experienced in both airport and green airport design, bringing experience from team members’ design of the Oslo Gardermoen Airport in Norway, which was dubbed the “world’s greenest” upon the opening of its extension in 2017, and the Istanbul Airport in Turkey, which offers the world’s largest terminal under one roof.

The new airport’s design merges Swiss efficiency and Indian hospitality in creating a modern and seamless passenger experience while setting new benchmarks for sustainability in airport terminal buildings in India, according to a statement from ZAIA, which was included in press material distributed by the design team. The design offers shaded landscaped spaces inside and outside the building, includes a concept for a future airport city, and provides flexible expansion options so that in the future the airport can ultimately serve an expected 30 million passengers annually.

The infrastructure development and job creation that the finished airport will provide will serve the fast-developing industrial region that is located between Delhi and Agra.

The post Slideshow: Delhi-area airport to be India’s greenest appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

Abstract

An extensive experimental program of constant-volume (undrained) cyclic simple shear tests was undertaken on Ticino, Italy, sand with different contents of nonplastic fines, ranging from 0% to 40%. The samples were reconstituted by moist tamping and tested with different initial states, including void ratios and effective vertical stresses. Test results confirmed that the concept of equivalent granular void ratio e∗is appropriate for the interpretation of the undrained cyclic behavior of sand with different amounts of fines up to the limiting fines content. Because a single trend for critical state (CS) data points was observed in the e∗-log(p′) plane (EG-CSL) for different amounts of fines, the cyclic simple shear test results were analyzed within a unified critical state soil mechanics (CSSM) framework in terms of an alternative state parameter, Ψ∗. A unique correlation between undrained cyclic strength (CRR) and Ψ∗ was found, irrespective of the fines content and initial state. Although a correlation between the cyclic resistance ratio and the conventional state parameter Ψ works as well, the procedure based on Ψ∗ has the advantage that the cyclic behavior of a certain sand with different contents of non plastic fines is described by a single reference curve (EG-CSL). In contrast to previous investigations in the literature, which mainly used triaxial tests, the CRR-Ψ∗correlation proposed in the present study is based on cyclic simple shear tests, which better represent the real ground conditions under seismic loading.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-5606.0002470

The post Researchers test sand-silt mixtures to predict liquefaction resistance appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

While this is an improvement from the D+ given in the 2017 Report Card, 11 of the categories are still in the ‘D’ range. So over the next four years, we need you to urge Congress to take action on sustained investment and focus on resilience to raise the grade.

Get involved by sharing the 2021 Report Card with your legislators. Write them an email or reach out to them via social media. Make an even bigger impact by becoming a Key Contact; learn how to develop relationships with your elected officials and influence public policy.

Watch more ASCE videos.

The post Help ASCE raise the grades for America’s infrastructure appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that the very not-normal year of 2020 feels both like a very long time ago and just yesterday, depending on who you’re talking to or what you’re talking about.

Many people have lost loved ones to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many others have lost their jobs. Everyone has seen their lives changed.

Last spring, the ASCE Plot Points podcast featured 33 different civil engineers in 33 days, checking in on how the coronavirus was affecting their work and their communities.

Now, as we mark the anniversary of life in the United States turned upside-down (news broke that Tom Hanks had tested positive on March 11, 2020 – oddly enough becoming the cultural turning point), many of those same civil engineers from the podcast series checked in with Civil Engineering Source to reflect on how the last year has changed their lives.

Camilla M. Saviz

Ph.D., P.E., ENV SP, F.ASCE

Professor and chair of the Department of Civil Engineering, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California

When we talked to Saviz last April, she was moving her college courses into an online model.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

The past year has been hard for many people. The numerous challenges all around us compounded the effects of dealing with the coronavirus – people being separated from family and friends, students struggling, families lost jobs and loved ones, social inequity and racial injustice, wildfires, floods, and environmental challenges. Unfortunately, the list is long, but despite all that, our students’ empathy, resilience, and creativity give me hope for the future. I’m also hopeful because vaccines are being distributed quickly and the difficult lessons we’ve learned this past year have underscored the urgent need for positive change.       

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

We’ve been teaching in remote mode since March 2020. Having to teach in this mode has made me rethink my courses, what I expect students to be able to do, and how I organize courses and materials to make it easier for students to learn. Technology has been a lifesaver, but I miss informal hallway conversations with students and being able to bounce ideas off colleagues. I’m not sure if this is a plus or minus, but the cats’ guest appearances in class and meetings was also new this year.

When do you see things returning to normal?

Our university president is hopeful that we can return to in-person instruction in the late summer, but the virus numbers in our region have been fickle. We’ll hope for the best, but I expect our return conditions will likely be different from pre-COVID conditions. We have definitely learned how to be adaptable and innovative in our approach! 

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

Events of the past year have taught us a lot about the need for resilience, justice, and sustainability. Civil engineers are in a unique position to lead change, and advocate for – and implement – resilient, just, and sustainable infrastructure and systems. I hope we seize this opportunity!

Jacob B. Forrester

P.E., M.ASCE

Assistant manager, Starkville Utilities, Starkville, Mississippi

When we talked to Forrester last April, he was launching – virtually – the 2020 Report Card for Mississippi’s Infrastructure.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

Surprisingly, I’m the odd type of engineer that thrives off of interaction with people and experiences. The most challenging thing for me has been slowing that to an almost non-existent state. We’ve had to get a little creative and host some things outdoors, online, or over the phone, but it’s not the same. I truly believe that humans are social beings, and I can certainly say it applies to me. I know that many people thrive in quiet and reflective situations, but it’s not for me. 

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

I work in an essential industry – utilities. The biggest effect has been navigating the nuances of keeping people separated physically, masked, etc., but still performing work that requires interaction and teamwork. Also, there are many people who believe COVID is a farce, and encouraging/directing them to wear masks at all times when around other people has been a difficult undertaking as well. Ultimately, everyone has bought into the requirements, but I know most of my team is ready to resume a sense of normalcy again.

When do you see things returning to normal?

My expectation is that we’ll see things return to normal by the end of 2021. I’m very hopeful that it will come sooner. I’d really like to watch SEC football in person again very soon!  

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

Civil engineers have a role in stimulating the economy in the immediate. We’ll be directly responsible for preparing public infrastructure projects and getting them to market once an infrastructure bill hits. It’s my expectation that “shovel-ready” will play a large role again, and I would recommend that any engineer working with a client in the pre-planning or planning phase be cognizant of what and when the bill(s) are coming. I cannot see that Congress won’t push for an economic recovery bill the moment they feel that the workforce and health officials can bear the push. An infrastructure bill has been needed for a long time, and it will almost certainly be the catalyst that allows our economy to maintain its dominance in the world economic market. I could be wrong, and if so, I’ll be disappointed, but the discussion has been ongoing for a decade now, and I really believe the Biden Administration will push hard for a package by the end of 2022.

Jonathan Brower

P.E., M.ASCE

Associate, L.A. Fuess Partners, Dallas, Texas

When we talked to Brower last April, he was adjusting his K-12 outreach work in Dallas high schools to continue via online events.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

I think for me the most challenging aspect has been maintaining intentional relationships with coworkers and colleagues during all this time working from home. Since we are not in the office, we miss out on the “water cooler talk” and short, but important, offhand conversations that happen as you walk by someone’s office/desk or pass them in the hallway. If you’re not careful, you can sometimes go a whole day or two (or week) without talking to someone about something other than “work.” Over time, this can really wear on you and on your company culture. I’ve found that while working from home you have to be very intentional about reaching out to people and scheduling time to just have a candid chat with someone. At first, it feels really weird to “schedule” a conversation that would otherwise happen randomly and naturally in an office setting, but I’ve grown to appreciate and respect the time we have to set aside to maintain these relationships.

Despite these challenges, I’ve really tried to embrace the unique opportunities of this season of life. My wife and I got to celebrate the birth of our son in May of 2020, and if there ever was a time to be forced to work from home it would be when you have a newborn baby. I got to see my son way more during the first three months of his life than I would have in a “normal” situation. I was home to help my wife as much as possible during the day, in between meetings and work, while she was on maternity leave. Now that my wife is back at work and our son is at daycare, I have the ability to prep our dinners and do chores around the house during the time I would ordinarily be commuting to and from work. There certainly are perks to working from home for me personally right now, and I think there will be another massive adjustment to how I plan out my day when I have to start going back into the office!

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

I would say the biggest effect has been on the growth of my digital communication skills. We have a couple of new college graduates on my engineering team at work, and it is my job to mentor and teach them as much as possible about structural engineering design. However, I now have to do it all over the phone and through a computer screen. I’m a huge hands-on learner and teacher – I love to sketch details and plans on paper, flip through the physical pages of a concrete or steel design code, write out calculations as we are working on them, and point to the computer screen or book as I’m teaching someone a new program or section of the building code. Transitioning all of this to a virtual platform takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of patience. However, I’ve definitely gotten better at it, and I’ve figured out various ways to use the digital tools at our disposal to help continue my personal growth as an engineer and the growth of the young engineers on my team.

Also, going back to the previous question about challenges of the past year, teaching new engineers in a virtual setting requires very important attention to one’s daily schedule. I have to be intentional about reaching out to engineers on my team throughout the day and week to make sure they aren’t wandering too far off-course or spinning their wheels. These types of check-ins would be easier and more natural in an office environment, but we now have to make sure we aren’t losing someone behind the computer monitors.

When do you see things returning to normal?

Haha – I have given up trying to predict when things will go back to normal. When we all first got sent home from work, I thought that being home for one whole month would be really crazy. If you had told me back then I would be working from home for a year plus, I probably would have fallen out of my chair. I honestly don’t know if there will ever be a complete return to normal, and I also don’t think that there is just going to be this single, celebratory day when the switch is “flipped” and we all just resume life as it was. I have a feeling that there will just be an incremental growth in normalcy with small luxuries and openings coming back but in modified and adjusted ways. All that being said, if you’re wanting me to put metaphorical money down at the betting table, I’d say that 2022 is looking like a pretty normal year (ooof, I’m going to regret that, aren’t I?)

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

I think like in any situation in human history, it’s civil engineers’ responsibility to be leaders during the post-pandemic recovery. Whether it be adapting our building designs to “COVID architecture” or re-thinking the way an urban core functions when half its workforce now has the opportunity to work from home, we need to be flexible and innovative with our engineering work to meet the changing needs of civilization. We also need to be leaders in our communities as we apply the personal and societal lessons learned over the past year. A lot of things happened between March 2020 and March 2021, the pandemic only being one (albeit large) part of those things. We all had to learn patience. We all had to learn empathy and understanding. We all had to learn to be flexible. We all were pushed out of our comfort zones. We can look back and be bitter about the time, opportunity, and experiences that were lost in this year, or we can choose to look back and see the things that were exposed and laid bare – not only in our society but in our own personal lives and how we grew out of those experiences. I hope that we as civil engineers do not take this year for granted, but rather that we carry forward the lessons learned from the past year into our personal and professional lives for the betterment of our families, society, and the civil engineering profession.

Sophie Lipomanis

S.M.ASCE

Student, J.B. Speed School of Engineering, University of Louisville, Kentucky

When we talked to Lipomanis last April, she had just returned home to New Jersey, driving cross-country after COVID-19 began spreading in Seattle, where she was doing an internship.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

For me it has been really psychologically difficult as a college student from the remote standpoint. My once in-person internships are now operating remotely, which was really nice at first – not having to dress up nor deal with a commute or relocating. But now I feel like it made it so I did not get the full intern experience. From a college perspective, I have not been able to see anyone nor participate in events as we used to. No more in-person ASCE student chapter meetings nor student council. That makes it a rather lonely pursuit, not just personally, but from a recruitment perspective, it is hard to make someone inspired to join a group when you cannot meet in person, nor [at a] table.

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

I would say the biggest effect has been the remote transition.

When do you see things returning to normal?

Honestly, I see universities returning to normal sooner. After all, they provide a college experience and need to make sure they offer it, or else there would have to be tuition reductions. However, with work? I am not sure. I think long-term remote working has proved to be a legitimate option. It’s cheaper than prime office space, and without tedious commutes and office distraction in some cases, I think people are more effective subjectively. However, most importantly with COVID, society has proved it can function and still meet and mediate the challenges of distanced communication, so I think there will be more online events in the future and much more remote working.

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

Civil engineers connect communities. We need to make sure that we are improving what we can with our various departments of transportation. Never before have so many people been off the roads, and never before have emissions been lessened to this extent. I think now is an excellent time for civil engineers to imprint the importance of sustainable options, and it is also the best time to work toward solutions-oriented thinking.

Alfredo Ignacio Falcon

EI, A.M.ASCE

Project manager, LUSEO Group, Barcelona, Spain

When we talked to Falcon in April, he was making a conscious effort to bring a positive attitude to his structural engineering work in Miami.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

For different reasons, including the pandemic, the issuance of new H1-B visas (a non-immigrant work visa) was cancelled for the year 2020. After living in Miami for more than five years as a student and later as a civil engineer, I could no longer stay in the United States under my student visa. Due to the cancellation of the H1-B visas (my company’s main plan for keeping me in the country), it was time for me to leave. Luckily enough, my firm – LUSEO Group – offered me the option to move to their office in Barcelona, Spain. That is how during the summer of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I moved my entire life to another country I had never lived in before.

Moving is to me the most literal sense of “getting out of your comfort zone.” But getting out of your comfort zone is also rewarded with new opportunities and exciting challenges that lead to growth. The eight months I have been in Spain are not the exception to the rule. From touring the beautiful city of Barcelona, to eating the delicious Spanish food, to working closely with the company’s founders, I have been rewarded with an abundance of opportunities and experiences that have allowed me to see things from a new and more global perspective.

Which does not mean it has been easy! Moving in the middle of a pandemic makes everything way harder: the lack of travel and housing options, all entities and government agencies partially working and the higher level of care one must maintain, adds an extra layer of stress to moving. But what I have lived is beyond anything I would have ever dreamt. What seemed like a punishment at the beginning, has certainly become one of the best experiences of my life.

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

Besides all the obvious effects related to the moving, my work has shifted in scope. On one side, my firm in Miami has grown quicker than expected, requiring me to help in multiple areas. Originally hired as a project manager to coordinate internal work with the clients, I have had to do design and administrative work at different times. The catch is that although LUSEO Group is a building engineering firms that does MEP, civil, and structural work (what my background is in) all around the world, in the United States, we have a core business on MEP and fire protection engineering. So, I have had to go back to square one and learn the basics of mechanical, electrical, and even plumbing engineering design, so I can be of more help to my company.

On the other side, my responsibilities have changed in that I now work closely with our offices in Europe and Africa, in non-technical areas of the engineering business: administration, business development, marketing, strategic planning, etc.

When do you see things returning to normal?

Unfortunately, I think it will be a long and very unequal path to getting back to normal. I believe “first-world” countries will be operating normally by the end of 2021, with the effects of the pandemic being felt only by the people traveling, or involved in the areas of trade, hospitality, etc. For poorer or underdeveloped countries, it will depend on how fast vaccines are produced and distributed to them. And even then, many countries will still be in an economic crisis – a product of the pandemic. In short, I think that we will be living a normal situation within the next 6-18 months, but the effects of the pandemic will most likely be felt for years to come.

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

I believe that not only civil engineers, but the entire AEC industry plays a key role in the post-pandemic recovery. As vaccines are rolled out and countries switch to focusing on the economic situation, many governments might opt to invest in infrastructure as a measure to stimulate the economy and create jobs – putting us engineers in the spotlight. It is not only our job but our responsibility to make sure that we focus on solutions that benefit not only our own companies but the greater interests of the people.

Vivian Chong

A.M.ASCE

Civil analyst, Kimley-Horn & Associates, Los Angeles

When we talked to Chong in April, she was wrapping her head around the idea of spending her final semester of college in lockdown and preparing to start her career in the middle of a pandemic.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

I’m going to be honest — out of most people, I’ve faced very minimal challenges and changes in 2020. The biggest challenge of 2020 was that I realized I didn’t really know who I was without other people. Pre-pandemic, I was constantly surrounded by other people and kept myself busy with schoolwork or events. I loved the fast-paced, jam-packed social schedules I would have every week, but with social distancing and quarantine mandates, spending time with others was no longer possible. The excess amount of time I had for myself was overwhelming at first. I felt the need to continue to be productive with all the extra time and hated wasting my days doing absolutely nothing, because all I knew was to be constantly stimulated for the sake of feeling like everything I was doing could amount to something important. However, I realized that the days where I could just watch Netflix all day would be rare to come across in the future, so I gave in and allowed myself to enjoy doing completely nothing. I also started going to therapy, not because I felt like I was in an unhealthy mental state but to learn more about myself and why I am the way that I am. And it has been incredibly insightful to delve deeper into my own thoughts when previously they would be ignored or even go completely unnoticed. I’m grateful for 2020 because it gave me the time to figure out who I was when no one else was around.

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

Having less traffic during my commute in Los Angeles is absolutely a blessing. On a more serious note, I was very lucky to have joined a company that did not face severe negative impacts due to COVID-19. The company reassured me that I should not be worried about losing my job when the pandemic started, and I started my career in the fall as planned.

I absolutely love where I work! My team is incredibly supportive, and I feel empowered by the number of women and people of color who work at my office. The biggest change is going to work at a mostly empty office and wearing masks, but I feel safe going out to work at an office with people who are taking the safety precautions as seriously, if not more seriously, as I am. Soon, as restrictions in Los Angeles County are lifted, more people will be coming back to the office. I’m excited to see more faces!

When do you see things returning to normal?

Hopefully by summer with vaccines finally rolling out. It will definitely be strange not wearing a mask in public or eating at a restaurant for the first time when things return to normal and will definitely take some time to get used to again.

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

2020 was an eye-opening year for everyone. I took time to educate myself about the struggles and challenges many communities of color have faced on a daily basis even before the pandemic, and recognized how it ties in with civil engineering and infrastructure as a whole. The systems and laws put in place heavily shape the way our industry functions. Post-pandemic, I hope that many current and future civil engineers will take a second to educate themselves so we can (literally) build an equitable future.

Jarred R. Jones

P.E., M.ASCE

Executive director, North Charleston Sewer District and North Charleston District, South Carolina

When we talked to Jones last April, he was working to ensure his community noticed as little change as possible.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

At the beginning of the pandemic, information was changing so rapidly. It was difficult to give accurate information to employees. Personally, it was challenging managing family. My wife started working from home and we had to take care of a 1- and 2-year-old at the same time. Along the same lines, there were several employees who had childcare issues, and we worked with them as much as we could. 

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

Although all our staff returned to normal hours in June (we did three months of shift work where everyone worked about 20 hours a week in case there was a major outbreak), we discovered a few positions can effectively work remotely if needed. The core functions – such as service calls, accounting, IT, and purchasing – were easy, and we will periodically practice performing some tasks remotely in case the situation arises again. Only about 10% of our workforce has the ability to work remotely, so balancing that desire with the rest of the company who cannot is our next challenge. We are creating guidelines for a limited work-from-home plan for those few employees.

One more important change is our communication directly to the employees. Before the pandemic, we had already given all employees email and put up message boards for general announcements. Over the past year, we have installed additional message boards, and I have sent out five video messages since Christmas. I think this is a good way to get messages out with some personal touch. We will be increasing these in the future with other executive staff sending out messages relating to their work or issues. 

When do you see things returning to normal?

My operations are essentially normal besides the distancing and mask-wearing. I think the United States will be close to normal by the end of summer, as I am looking forward to getting rid of the mask requirements.

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

I think the design of buildings and technology will forever be changed. You need to prepare for this scenario and have many options ready to go instead of the scramble that took place last spring. We are in the process of creating additional meeting spaces to promote distancing. We are also doing an A/V upgrade to our Commission Chambers to allow remote meetings and trainings.

Peyton Gibson

EIT, A.M.ASCE

Associate program officer, Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, Washington, D.C. 

When we talked to Gibson last April, she had just moved across the country to start a new job based in Washington, D.C.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

I moved to D.C. in February of 2020. I didn’t really know anyone here before moving, so my in-person human contact has been pretty abysmal for the last year. I still feel very lucky to have kept up with my support network, albeit virtually. My boss and work have been fantastic throughout the pandemic in respecting boundaries and being flexible. I’ve also been able to learn a lot about my community through work with Mutual Aid and local government committees and projects, which I wouldn’t have otherwise.

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

I began my job with the National Academies remotely and had already been working from home a few days a week when the pandemic started, so none of that was “new.” However, a lot of my work involves workshops or multi-day consensus meetings that are a lot more conducive to doing in person. We have adapted and I’ve connected with so many new people during this time, but I’m looking forward to working with these people in the same room again.

When do you see things returning to normal?

I’m not really sure what “normal” will mean going forward. I hope people keep wearing masks in public when they’re sick for … forever. I’m also considering moving to Philadelphia after I’m vaccinated and commuting via train to D.C. for the “big” meetings I’m needed for (don’t tell my boss yet). Philly’s cost of living is way lower (and I’m in love with the city). I don’t think this would have flown in the “before times” but I think I could get my boss to sign off on it now.

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

The pandemic exacerbated inequities and disparities that have existed in this country for centuries. I think for many Americans, the past year was a rude awakening or at the very least an ugly reminder. Within the past 12 months, we’ve not only seen the Navajo Nation and other communities of color get ravaged by the virus but witnessed massive protests for racial justice sparked by the murder of George Floyd. 

The built environment has played an enormous role in segregating America racially and economically. Although it is encouraging that the new administration’s USDOT is looking into policies to “reverse decades of discriminatory [infrastructure] planning,” the engineering industry must do more. The main reason I left the engineering industry was because of the discrimination and “old-school” mentality I saw (and received). These attitudes permeate the design and construction of infrastructure. We need to have a larger conversation about the “most important” canon in the code of ethics; “first and foremost, protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.” My hope is for engineers to advocate for and create projects that strengthen communities instead of opting for exciting, profitable, and oftentimes damaging ones.

Anthony Cioffi

P.E., F.ASCE

Professor emeritus and adjunct professor, Department of Construction Management and Civil Engineering Technology, New York City College of Technology, Brooklyn

When we talked to Cioffi last April, he was in the middle of one of the country’s first coronavirus epicenters, continuing to work as assistant resident engineer for the Kew Gardens Interchange Phase 4 project.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

Staying healthy and safe in a COVID-19 world while trying to maintain a somewhat normal and professional life. It has been an ongoing challenge to keep our staff healthy and safe while trying to move a large transportation project forward. On such a large project, we had to continually monitor the contractor and subs for symptoms and test results. We were responsible for monitoring approximately 150-200 workers each day to ensure that everyone was following the mandated COVID-19 protocols. It can get very stressful at certain times, especially when a colleague or a worker tested positive for COVID-19. You’re always concerned about your family and friends. Will you bring this virus home today? Is this the start of something bad? If you or a colleague tests positive this could begin a snowball effect resulting in the virus being transmitted to your family and friends. I lost a very close college friend to COVID-19 this past year. A lack of one-to-one or personal contact this past year creates within you a feeling of neglect and uncertainty. You tend to reevaluate your life and what is important. Each day brings with it new challenges. Plans are constantly in flux and changing. Uncertainty is part of the new normal. Staying safe is always on your mind.

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

Personal contact with our staff. Face-to-face meetings were prohibited. Social distancing was the new norm. Business had to be conducted virtually. The downside is also a positive, as you can engage more people. It opens up new opportunities for communication. Colleagues from different time zones could now meet and share information using a virtual environment. Virtual meetings before COVID-19 were not the norm. Most of us are used to face-to-face meetings. Socialization also became different. Interacting with others via a computer screen was new and not without its challenges. Adjustments were required as with anything new. As a former ASCE Region 1 director, the Region 1 board had to make adjustments and compromises. In-person meetings were not prudent. The Region 1 board was a very closely knit group. We prided ourselves on our ability to create interest and excitement in ASCE and Region 1. The region had to think outside the box for new ways to interact. How do we hold a Virtual Assembly? How do we engage our students? How do we make it interesting and provide value to our members? Personal contact is always better.

When do you see things returning to normal?

I am not sure back to normal will ever occur – at least in the foreseeable future. There is a new normal that will need to be embraced. We will need to change the way we have done things in the past. Things will never be as they once were. COVID-19 has changed our profession and personal lives forever. Maybe some of it is actually for the better. We can hope that the vaccines will work and that an effective treatment protocol, including new medicines, can be developed to stop the suffering and dying. We have conquered many illnesses and diseases in our lifetime. We must remain hopeful that this too shall pass. Sometimes new is better. Normal is a relative term.   

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

The future is bright for the profession. The world is now paying closer attention to deficient infrastructure. Projects have emerged over the past year. The COVID-19 recovery will be driven by an investment into our aging infrastructure. We need to put people back to work. History has shown us this. The 2021 ASCE Report Card for America’s Infrastructure brings to light that investment is needed. America’s infrastructure was given a C-, which is an improvement over the last grade of D+.  But $2.59 trillion is required over the next 10 years. Civil engineers will be front and center in this effort. We will have a large role in the recovery as design and construction services will be needed. New construction methods will be developed. New materials and new technology will be developed and used to create a sustainable and resilient infrastructure.

Maryam Takla

EIT, A.M.ASCE

Project engineer, Turner Construction, Long Beach, California

When we talked to Takla last April, she was returning to the work site for construction on the new Los Angeles Rams football stadium.

What’s been the most personally challenging aspect of the last year for you?

The most personal challenging aspect of the last year would have to be the inability to participate in activities I love and that would alleviate my stress. Whether it was from work or classes I’m taking in my master’s program or anything really, that release and reminder that I’m more than my day-to-day responsibilities was a key factor to my confidence and mental health.

What’s been the biggest change in your work/career?

I see the construction branch to be one of the more interactive branches in civil engineering. We have so many social interactions with our teammates, subcontractors, inspectors, architects, and clients. These social interactions/team-building meetings are so crucial to build that sense of camaraderie and, ultimately, the project. I’ve felt that it can be difficult to maintain or even establish (depending on the phase of the project), connections due to switching meetings to a web platform or waving to greet someone instead of giving them a handshake. Nowadays, it’s become a little easier, but I remember the awkwardness and confusion when these customs were still being implemented in the beginning.

When do you see things returning to normal?

To be honest, it’s so hard to tell. I don’t think we will ever be able to have everything go back to the way they were before the pandemic. I’ve seen companies that have advanced from the pandemic by learning to make working-from-home the new normal and don’t intend to bring back pre-COVID work life. I’m sure once everyone, or at least the majority of the population, has been vaccinated, we will all be able to return to the things we need and love. But in the big picture, we also have to consider the recovery after the pandemic has been resolved. People have taken hits financially, have lost family and friends, and other things. I don’t know when we will be able to consider the pandemic a thing of the past.

What do you think is civil engineering’s role in a post-pandemic recovery?

We should focus on the areas that made COVID difficult to avoid due to a faulty infrastructure. An example of this is public transportation. For highly dense areas, it can be difficult to maintain the recommended six feet when your means of moving is public transportation. The caveat with this situation is with the varying populations and city landscapes, there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. For some countries, another example would be availability of clean water. At first, when I thought about this question, I didn’t really think there would be much relation between civil engineering and the pandemic. I had always seen the pandemic in some sort of political, medical, or financial way. However, it is more evident now than ever that this is a team effort, and if there is anyone who has the means to improve the quality of life, it’s going to be us.

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And while that marks an improvement over the D+ grade on ASCE’s 2017 Report Card and is the highest overall grade in 20 years for the nation’s infrastructure, the report found that the long-term infrastructure investment gap continues to grow. That gap has risen from $2.2 trillion over 10 years in the last report to $2.59 trillion in the latest study, meaning a funding gap of nearly $260 billion per year.

“We have not made the investments to maintain infrastructure that in some cases was built more than 50 years ago,” said ASCE Executive Director Tom Smith.

“As this study shows, we risk significant economic losses, higher costs to consumers, businesses and manufacturers – and our quality of life – if we don’t act urgently. When we fail to invest in infrastructure, we pay the price.”

Using an A to F school report card format, ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure provides a comprehensive assessment of current infrastructure conditions and needs, evaluating 17 categories.

The individual 2021 grades ranged from a B for rail to a D- for transit. Despite incremental gains, 11 of the 17 categories received a grade in the D range. Five category grades – for aviation, drinking water, energy, inland waterways, and ports – went up from the last report in 2017, while one category – bridges – went down.

“I believe the overall grade of a C- shows that we’re on the right track but have a ways to go,” said Ruwanka Purasinghe, EIT, A.M.ASCE, member of ASCE’s Committee on America’s Infrastructure. “We’ve seen over the past four years that with proper resources, implementation, and funding, we can really make a meaningful impact on our infrastructure. I’m also excited to see how innovation and technology will continue to change the way we approach and provide solutions for our aging infrastructure.”

The 2021 Report Card found three overarching trends affecting infrastructure:

• Maintenance backlogs continue to be an issue, but asset management helps prioritize limited funding.

• Federal investments can significantly move the needle, as seen in the improved inland waterways, ports, and drinking water grades. Additionally, state and local governments have made progress, such as leveraging gas tax to fund transportation investments.

• There are still infrastructure sectors where data is scarce or unreliable.

ASCE revealed the grades through a virtual news conference, followed by the ASCE Solutions Summit. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) spoke during the Report Card release: “This is something that both Republicans and Democrats say should be a top priority. If we can’t come to a consensus on infrastructure across the aisle, I’m not sure we can find bipartisan consensus on anything. … I think it’s critically important for us that we invest in our infrastructure so we can be an example to the rest of the world.”

The ASCE Committee on America’s Infrastructure, made up of 31 civil engineers from across the country with decades of expertise in all categories, prepared the Report Card, assessing all relevant data and reports, consulting with technical and industry experts, and assigning grades using the following criteria: capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation and maintenance, public safety, resilience, and innovation. In support of ASCE’s experts, a research team of EBP, Downstream Strategies, Daymark Energy Advisors, and the Interindustry Forecasting Project at the University of Maryland (INFORUM) helped develop the study. 

Read more about the Report Card, including deep dives into each infrastructure category, in Civil Engineering magazine.

To view the full report, visit InfrastructureReportCard.org.

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The following guides provide a comprehensive overview of the specific load provision within Standard ASCE 7-16, highlighting significant changes from the previous edition as well as providing design examples. Here are quick introductions for each loads book:

Wind Loads
With the increase in tropical stores, hurricanes, and tornadoes, wind loads are even more critical in structural engineering. ASCE 7-16 Wind Load Subcommittee member authors Coulbourne and Stafford offer insight that helps users understand and apply ASCE 7-16 wind load provisions to every project design. Some specific changes covered in ASCE 7-16 include modified wind speed maps, including new separate maps for Risk Category III and IV structures; a revised methodology to determine exposure category; new provisions for roof top solar arrays, canopies, and bins, tanks, and silos; and more.

Seismic Loads
Applying the latest thinking in seismic design of new building structures is critical for engineers, architects, and construction professionals who work on buildings and other structures in seismically active locations. ASCE 7-16 Seismic Load Subcommittee member authors Charney, Heausler, and Marshall present numerous examples for assessing conditions including identifying occupancy, importance, and seismic design categories; determining the seismic requirements; and selecting a structural system. Topics include building irregularities, structural analysis, lateral system forces, load factors, drift, and P-delta effects. Expanded examples of the use of Equivalent Lateral Force Analysis, Modal Response Spectrum Analysis, and Linear Response History Analysis and more are also included.

Tsunami Loads
Stemming largely from data acquired after the devastating tsunamis in Chile (2010) and Japan (2011), ASCE 7-16 includes new provisions for addressing tsunami loads and effects. ASCE 7-16 Tsunami Load and Effects Subcommittee member author Robertson helps engineers to understand the background and development of the new chapter and demonstrates the application of tsunami risk categories and design procedures in a numerous examples and full-length tsunami design of a prototype building.

Snow Loads
Falling / drifting snow can negatively impact a structure if not designed to accommodate the load. Long time industry luminary, ASCE 7-6 Snow Loads Subcommittee member author O’Rourke discusses flat roof loads, sloped roof loads, partial loads, and all types of conventional drift loading. New provisions in the edition are ground snow load tables for seven states; how snow density changes over a winter season; snow loads on air-supported structures; and more. He includes 35 worked examples of real-life design problems, and FAQs.

Rain Loads
Drainage issues and unintentional blockages can increase the effects of rainfall on structures. ASCE 7-16 Rain Loads Subcommittee member authors O’Rourke and Lewis discuss the changes in this edition of the standard as well as provide a detailed discussion of the rain load hazard. Practitioner will understand the determination of drainage area, head-flow relationships and the associated types of flow, simplified conservative rain load procedures and limits that yield more accurate load estimates, and ponding loads.

These load books are essential references for practicing structural engineers.

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Establishing a World Engineering Day “is a tremendous achievement for engineers. It gives us an opportunity to engage with the community,” says Kanga. “As engineers we’re very good at our job, but we’re very internally focused on process and not on celebrating the outcomes. This is a day about the outcomes and impact of engineering.”

The creation of this annual celebration reflects years of deep collaboration between WFEO and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the latter organization’s deep ties to engineering.

(UNESCO was founded in 1945 at the Institution of Civil Engineers in London, the oldest engineering institution in the world. WFEO, which UNESCO founded as a strategic partner organization in 1968, is the international body for professional engineering institutions. It comprises 100 national professional engineering institutions from around the world and 12 international/continental members.)

The roots of the day stretch back a few years. To celebrate its 50th birthday, the WFEO, on March 4, 2018, signed a declaration of collaboration with UNESCO to advance the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals that were adopted in 2015. These include goals that align with the work of engineers, including climate action, clean water and sanitation, gender education, clean energy, zero hunger, and no poverty.

Sustainability “means a world where there is peace, where there is respect for cultural diversity, where there is inclusivity, where there is no hunger, where everybody has quality education in a world where there’s a lot of international collaboration,” says Peggy Oti-Boateng, Ph.D., the director for the Division of Science Policy and Capacity-Building in the Natural Sciences Sector of UNESCO. “We also want to preserve and conserve the ecosystem, reduce biodiversity loss,” she says. “We want to leave something for the next generation.”

From the get-go, World Engineering Day has highlighted the critical role engineers must play in making the world more sustainable. And the event is about “engineers stepping out and telling the world everything around you is engineering,” Kanga says. “We have nature, (but) the rest of it is engineering. You simply can’t have our modern life without engineering.

“Young people in particular love the idea of the impact of engineering on the Sustainable Development Goals of a better world,” Kanga says. “It adds purpose to engineering as a career.”

But sustainability also means improving equity within the profession, especially when it comes to supporting girls in engineering education and women in the profession. “We just can’t afford to waste any more time as the world needs more engineers and more diverse engineers,” Kanga says. “We need more women out there as leaders (who are) respected for their technical expertise.”

Planning an event in the time of COVID-19

Putting the event together required building up support across several meetings with UNESCO through fall 2018 and early 2019 — just to get a chance for Kanga to present a proposal to UNESCO’s executive board in April 2019. The matter had to be placed on the agenda by at least one member state and supported by other member states, preferably from every continent. UNESCO had doubts, she says, whether there was enough support across member nations to establish and sustain a day celebrating engineers. But after a lot of work from Kanga and her colleagues, 40 member states eventually supported the proposal.

(As it turns out, Kanga was given just one minute to speak at the three-day meeting of the UNESCO executive board that April. And because meetings ran late, she wound up flying home to Sydney without making that planned speech. Despite this, the executive board approved the proposal the following week, and UNESCO’s General Conference approved the proposal that November.)

Kanga and organizers at WFEO had planned a full day of events last year at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters. The highlights were supposed to be a focus on women engineers, a competition for young engineers, and addressing the implementation of advanced technologies for sustainable development, especially in developing countries. The events included highlighting case studies on information and communication projects for smart cities and how geospatial engineering can be used effectively for sustainable and resilient infrastructure. Posters promoting the work of engineers in the context of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals were displayed around the fence of the UNESCO building.

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic the inaugural event was canceled on Feb. 27, less than a week before it was scheduled to take place. Organizers quickly moved World Engineering Day online and were still able to host 90 events across 50 countries. Many local events were even held face to face in areas where pandemic lockdowns had not yet been implemented. Despite the late changes, the event was a success.

Getting everyone involved

This year UNESCO and WFEO will again celebrate World Engineering Day. The main event of this year’s virtual celebration, to be held on March 4, is a webinar centered on the release of UNESCO’s new engineering report, Engineering for Sustainable Development: Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals. Registration for this event is still open.

Dozens of other open events around the world are planned for March 4-12. Registration is also still open for ASCE’s Developing and Delivering Sustainable Solutions for Global Engineering Challenges event that is being held on March 4 as part of the organization’s free Thursdays @3 virtual roundtable series.

Engineering organizations around the world are participating in the day — and that’s very much the point. For example, on the tiny island nation of Mauritius, the Institution of Engineers Mauritius has organized a digital commemorative journal for 2021, Engineering the Future of Mauritius and the World, that will be released on March 4. The journal focuses on engineering and includes, but is not limited to, addressing the issues identified in the Sustainable Development Goals.  

“The idea for each nation and each organization,” says Kanga, “is to make World Engineering Day their own, for everyone to do their own thing, to celebrate as they see appropriate and use this as an opportunity to talk all things engineering.”

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Work is underway on the Zhuhai Jinwan Civic Art Center in Zhuhai, China. Designed by London- and Beijing-based architecture studio Zaha Hadid Architects, the layered, star-shaped center will be located in the city’s Western Ecological New Town and boast the studio’s well-known white, glass, and steel aesthetics. The center will be located within a human-made lake, and a four-lane road with two lanes in either direction will pass directly underneath it.

The center will contain four large, distinct cultural institutions joined together via a central plaza that will act as an external foyer for each. Each venue — a 1,200 seat grand theater, a 500-seat multifunctional hall, a science center, and an art museum — will occupy one of the campus’s four arms. An external amphitheater will host outdoor performances and activities on the western side of the center.

A 170 m by 270 m reticulated shell lattice steel canopy will cover the four venues as a unifying roof structure that will give the center its layered star-shaped appearance. Modular design and construction have made it possible to prefabricate and preassemble much of the steel lattice roof, which is self-supporting and self-stabilizing.

The steel structure for two of the four leaves of the roof canopy has now been installed.

While the buildings underneath the roof canopy will be double insulated to protect their interiors from solar gain, the roof canopy will also provide external shading for these buildings. Strategically placed perforations in the panels have been sited to allow differing degrees of sunlight into the spaces, depending on the venue’s programming requirements and building orientation.

The architectural team has incorporated a series of interconnected bridges, ramps, and voids to offer visitors opportunities to cross the lake, climb to a rooftop piazza, and enjoy views of the center’s central plaza as well as its various promenades, cafes, restaurants, and educational facilities.

The building has been designed to receive two stars within China’s three-star Green Building Evaluation Standard. As part of this, priority has been given to the use of recycled materials for the center’s structural components. A waste heat recovery system will also be used to meet the center’s hot water needs, and water-saving appliances will regulate the center’s water-recycling system, according to the architects. Humidity and soil-moisture sensors will also be used to monitor and control water use in the landscaping.

The lake will serve a practical purpose as well as an aesthetic one: It is an integral element in Zhuhai’s “sponge city” initiative, according to the architects. This initiative aims to store, reuse, and naturally filter with aquatic flora and fauna at least 70% of the rainwater that falls in the city.

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When she thinks about planet-sized crises like climate change and water scarcity, she gets scared like anyone else.

It’s what she does next that marks Pugel as special.

She turns that fear into productive, positive action. A doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she plans to complete her doctorate in civil engineering systems this summer, Pugel is not running from those challenges but instead facing them head-on, using an interdisciplinary array of skills to develop solutions.

ASCE has honored her as a 2021 New Face of Civil Engineering.

Pugel’s work combines environmental engineering, planning, policymaking, and a heavy dose of communication skills, particularly as it relates to facilitating communication between stakeholders and decision-makers.

“I definitely see myself as part of a team that’s working tirelessly to help governments build robust systems and policies so they can make water infrastructure reliably provide services amid climate change,” Pugel said, describing how she envisions her career.

She’s served four years volunteering with the U.N. Major Group for Children and Youth on their Science Policy Interface platform, advocating to strengthen the involvement of younger generations in policymaking for the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Most recently, she’s developed a research program to assess international development projects that strengthen rural water and sanitation systems in East Africa.

Pugel, S.M.ASCE, spoke recently with Civil Engineering Source about her career.

Civil Engineering Source: How did you come to approach engineering from this more holistic, systems standpoint?

Kimberly Pugel: To be honest, I was motivated to pursue this type of engineering more out of fear and frustration than inspiration, if that makes sense.

Our world is facing such huge, scary challenges. Our climate is warming past the point of no return. We have 2 billion people who don’t have basic sanitation services. We have 100-year storms that are hitting every few years, displacing millions.

I think that really jolted me, these big problems that my generation is facing. But on top of that, I became frustrated because I saw engineers trying to solve these problems through infrastructure alone.

And don’t get me wrong, focusing on the infrastructure alone can be a fantastic approach for a lot of problems – like if you have a leaking underground storage tank or a wastewater treatment plant to upgrade. But for these big, scary, systemic problems, I saw that focusing on infrastructure alone led to failure. That was really frustrating to me, because I think like a lot of people, I wholeheartedly believe that infrastructure should actually provide a service for its design life and improve people’s lives.

For these systemic problems, what I’ve learned is that you have to have a system in place before you design infrastructure.

I’ll give an example from some of my recent work that I’ve been doing that’s in the context of sanitation.

If you have a latrine that is designed to provide access to sanitation to a family or two for 10 years, it can’t do it all by itself. It needs to have institutional arrangements for a vacuum truck, let’s say, to come empty it when it fills. It needs to have an operating treatment plant to dump the waste at. It needs to have financing mechanisms to subsidize the vac truck so the households can afford to pay for it. It needs to have regulatory oversight, so the treatment plant is treating to acceptable levels. The wastewater utility needs to be accountable; it needs to have the capacity to plan for increasing urbanization. And overall, you need to have an administration office that has the right policies in place and the right coordination mechanisms in place so that all those things actually work.

So I guess what I’m getting at is there is so much more needed before you start the construction of that latrine.

More recently, after I shifted my focus, I’ve been really inspired by some of the work I’ve seen by some organizations, who are trying to strengthen the systems surrounding infrastructure. It’s really opened my eyes to this way of, I guess, complementing the way engineering gets done.

Source: The motivation you derive from climate change and the other challenges facing the planet, when did that start for you?

Pugel: I grew up in a small, old mining town in rural California, and it actually was home to the state’s biggest and oldest mine. And for years, ever since it was created in the 1800s, it’s been polluting one of the rivers and affecting the water quality. When I was in high school, our town got a grant to put in a passive remediation system to solve it, and it was something that I never realized – there were people who had this job of going and fixing people’s water sources. That’s when I knew I wanted to be an engineer working on water issues.

In becoming an engineer, I liked the math, I loved the chemistry. But with the skills that I learned, I didn’t think I could fully tackle some of these bigger-picture problems. And I knew that’s what I wanted to work on, so I returned to grad school to learn the skills to work on these types of problems.

Source: Obviously, those systems also depend on policymakers and other decision-makers to function. How would you suggest engineers better influence those decisionmakers, whether it’s at a local or national level?

Pugel: So, there’s no secret formula, I hate to tell you. But what I have learned is that who makes decisions varies so much between contexts. So I would say just do your homework, know who the decision-makers are, know their priorities, know the constraints they’re working under, know if they make decisions based on evidence.

All decision-makers, no matter where you are, they’re all balancing a ton of priorities with limited budgets. So getting their buy-in is incredibly difficult, especially if you’re working on a new type of project that’s unfamiliar.

One of the most impressive, effective tactics that’s probably as close to a secret formula as you can get, in my experience, is efforts that bring decision-makers together with other stakeholders in the same room and facilitate them to identify problems and come to solutions collectively.

And not the barely-scratching-the-surface, echo-chamber type of forums where decisionmakers will quote-unquote hear statements from stakeholders, when they’ve actually already made up their minds.

I’ve seen a lot of that.

I guess I mean this more constructively than as a critique, in some of my volunteer work with the United Nations, I’ve learned how so much happens behind the scenes of U.N. forums. A lot of decisions are made before the forum even starts. And it makes it so there’s not a lot of space for things to actually get done during the meetings.

Source: I know you’ve done a lot of work in East Africa. What form has that taken?

Pugel: I work on a project with the U.S. Agency for International Development to generate evidence for future USAID programming and policies for water and sanitation. Essentially, USAID is trying to fund new types of international development programs, and my research evaluates 11 of those programs, compares the costs to the benefits, and identifies best practices. These programs bring decision-makers, the private sector, mechanics, government engineers, a lot of different stakeholders together to collectively identify problems in their water and sanitation system and then find ways to solve them together.

Besides the policy implications of this work, one thing I really love is getting to travel to the field. I think that’s probably not a surprise. I’ve been really lucky to travel multiple times a year – pre-COVID of course – to East Africa.

I get to go and observe the meetings and see how the work unfolds live. I’ve spent a total of more than seven months there in the field, sometimes in pretty extreme conditions. I’ve actually had my shoes melt once, visiting a solar-powered borehole in the hottest and driest region in the world.

I think one of the reasons that place has always stuck with me is the people are so resilient. They live in those shoe-melting temperatures. Those people are experiencing climate change every single day. And the people in this area are pastoralists, meaning that they don’t have one place where they live; every season, they’ll move to follow where the water goes. So every year they have to move further and further because it’s becoming drier and drier with climate change.

It’s so eye-opening to me, because I think a lot of people here in the U.S. see climate change as something that’s going to affect future generations. But it’s ruining people’s lives like right now, as we speak.

And that is so horrifying.

Source: Looking back, given all you’ve learned, is there any advice you’d give your younger self?

Pugel: I remember when I first became interested in policy, I was really intimidated. I thought there would be no way to combine engineering experience with policy or programming; that if I chose one path, I would lose the other. But they aren’t mutually exclusive. It really takes time to find the right balance.

So I would tell my younger self or anyone else in my shoes that getting experience actually informing policies and programs takes a lot of time and even more patience.

Change is slow but stick with it. Over time, you do have the power to change things.

Read more about the 2021 New Faces of Civil Engineering.

The post New Face honoree seeks systems solutions to world water crises appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

Not even a little bit.

On the verge of becoming the first fully certified Living Building (as designated by the International Living Future Institute) of its size in the Southeast, the 47,000-square-foot building (both indoors and out) generates more electricity than it uses, reduces stormwater runoff, and manages its own wastewater onsite.

As its director Shan Arora said, “This building screams sustainability.”

Arora, a lawyer whose path toward a career in sustainability is as unique and innovative as the building he manages, will serve as the keynote speaker at the ASCE Architectural Engineering Institute Conference, held virtually April 7-9, focused on regenerative building design and innovation.

He spoke recently with the Civil Engineering Source about the Kendeda Building, his own journey into this role, and the conversation of morality happening right now around the notion of buildings and the built environment.

Civil Engineering Source: What led you to a place in your career where you’re part of the Living Buildings movement?

Arora: I started my career in the world of international trade and international tax. And I joke, I’m probably the only director of a living building that is a licensed customs broker.

It’s totally random. So yeah, it’s kind of a weird thing. The reason I am and have been in this sustainability world for 11 years is that I had always been personally passionate about environmental issues.

I say everybody is an environmentalist. You have to be. There is no planet B. There’s no other place we can go, and it’s all about connecting with people and understanding where we can find common ground to move toward a sustainable, responsible relationship with the planet.

So 15 years ago I basically made the decision that I was going to shift my career and align it with my passion, and that’s what I did. And two-and-a-half years ago, I was fortunate enough to have been selected for this honor to serve as the director of this project. And we are on the cusp of submitting all the documentation we will need to hopefully to become certified as the first Living Building of this size in the Southeast.

Because of my corporate background, I feel that I can talk to audiences and say, “Look, I am an unapologetic tree-hugger, but I don’t own a pair of Birkenstocks.”

I don’t discount the profit motive. I understand business. I understand economics and capitalism.

But I also am not afraid – and I don’t think any of us should be afraid – to talk about the morality of what it is we’re doing. There is a moral spectrum. But I think there are some fundamental things that human beings, across the board, actually will agree on. So we do have to ask ourselves about the morality of what it is we’re doing to this planet; what it is we’re doing to each other. Is there a better way of doing it?

Source: The Kendeda Building wrapped construction in 2019. Can you give us an overview of what it is and how it functions?

Arora: The building is a non-departmental classroom and teaching lab. And the “non-departmental” is extremely important. We want the full breadth of Georgia Tech’s undergraduate students to go through this building.

Because seeing is believing. We don’t want it to be something that’s only reserved for architecture students.

Before COVID disrupted normal occupancy, a calculus class of 100 students would be in the auditorium, and in the 12-person seminar room, you would have an English class, next to that in the design studio you might have an architecture class. You had geology lab upstairs, earth and atmospheric sciences. You get the idea.

The Living Building Challenge is framed around the metaphor of a flower, and there are these seven petals that a project must satisfy to become a fully certified Living Building. And the metaphor of a flower is very apropos because we want buildings to come into this world, take everything they need from their place, leave with no disruption, and leave more than they took.

That’s what regenerative means. You give back more than you take. In an academic context, that’s what we want our students to do.

The building screams sustainability. You can’t walk into the building and not notice that. It’s not a normal building. So we want the biology student to sit in the common area and maybe strike up a conversation with a calculus student, and then a physics student joins in and in between staring at their phones and TikTok videos, maybe they’ll talk about the building and bring their unique perspective to the challenges that the building seeks to address.

And that pollination will lead to a seed, and where that seed germinates, we don’t know. But I would love if one day a civilization-changing invention is announced and for the team that created that invention to say, “We actually started as a conversation in this regenerative, Living Building at Georgia Tech.”

That’s the vision.

The building is doing so much to be regenerative that it gives us the space we need to get a little preachy and talk about morals. That’s where it comes back to morals.

We anthropomorphize the building. Look at all this building is doing. What are you going to do?

It’s generating more electricity each year than it consumes. It’s infiltrating water back into the groundwater. It’s managing your poo and pee onsite! It’s doing all this. What are you going to do?

Now we can have the moral conversation.

Source: What specific aspects of the building are you most excited to talk about?

Arora: One, how we manage our poo and pee. There’s a lot of potty talk in the Kendeda Building. And two, how we’ve incorporated reclaimed material.

A lot of other stuff, people don’t connect to it. But everybody has to go to the bathroom, and everybody – even my 3-year-old nephew, my daughter – at some point they understand that maybe we shouldn’t be throwing things away that can still be used.

The way that the Kendeda Building manages our bio-waste addresses an acute and chronic problem we have in our region. We have aging infrastructure; we have combined stormwater and sewage. The Atlanta region is an extremely wet region. Increasingly, our normal rain events are flooding our system because we’ve paved over so much of the metro area. In our region, it’s not an unusual headline to hear that we’ve had a sewage spill.

And here the Kendeda Building comes and tells you, “Your poo and pee never has to connect to a sewer.” Twenty toilets and urinals don’t connect to the sewer. Right there, that’s like wow, right? That is a solution to a problem that most everybody in Atlanta knows exists.

Similarly, the reclaimed material does the same thing. I ask people, “Have you ever been by a construction site and seen a tractor trailer–sized bin where they just throw things in? Why are we throwing all that stuff away? Shouldn’t we have designed it better? Everything in that bin is wasted money.”

Then I show them every single place in the building where we incorporated material that was salvaged from a demolition site.

Instead of throwing away material from our construction site, we planned and incorporate what would have otherwise been wasted material into the building.

All of this does increase costs. Deconstructing a building, milling that material into a new material for reuses, it takes labor. But that’s going to be local labor. We actually used workforce development labor to construct major components of the building. It was six formerly homeless individuals. So the reuse of salvaged material is part of what we call the salvage economy. It’s an entire sector of the economy that doesn’t exist in the region. And the icing on the cake is you’re diverting this material from the landfill.

 It all goes back to what our kids already know – maybe we shouldn’t be throwing this stuff away.

Learn more about attending the AEI Conference.

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A new study, “Setting Future Water Rates for Sustainability of a Water Distribution System” in the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, introduces a hybrid-SD model, combining the hydraulic analysis tool EPANET and a feedback SD model loop, to quantify the investment needs required. The paper was written by Seungyub Lee, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE; Christine Pomeroy; and Steven Burian, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE.

Abstract

This study introduces an approach to plan future water rates to achieve water distribution system (WDS) sustainability triple-top line (TTL) targets. The WDS components are modeled by connecting the EPANET hydraulic model with multiple interconnected subsystem models in a hybrid-system dynamics configuration. The approach is demonstrated with the hypothetical network, U-City, to optimally set the user fee to maximize a TTL sustainability index (SI). Overall, three demonstrations were performed to test the model: (1) identifying the influence of water price elasticity (WPE); (2) SI sensitivity to a water price adjustment in rate and time; and (3) optimal planning of a water price adjustment strategy. The first demonstration illustrated that neglecting WPE leads to an overestimation of revenue. The second demonstration confirmed that aggressive water pricing does not lead to increased SI. Finally, the third demonstration showed that frequent and lower water price increases are more favorable for a higher WPE to create a sustainable system. In summary, the proposed approach can provide a useful way to analyze future water rates to maximize the sustainability of a WDS.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0001313

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In addition to the McLoughlin Point facility, the CRD’s Wastewater Treatment Project entailed the design and construction of the Residuals Treatment Facility to convert wastewater solids into a highly treated product for beneficial reuse as well as major upgrades to the existing collection system to reduce wet weather overflows. With these components in place, the ambitious Wastewater Treatment Project is significantly reducing the discharge of pollutants to the environment and employing advanced approaches to maximize resource recovery and improve sustainability.

The days of ‘preliminary treatment only’

Located at the entrance of the Victoria Harbour, the McLoughlin Point WWTP treats wastewater from the municipalities of Victoria, Esquimalt, Saanich, Oak Bay, View Royal, Colwood, and Langford as well as the Esquimalt and Songhees nations. Before December, wastewater underwent preliminary treatment at either the Clover Point Pump Station or the Macaulay Point Pump Station and then was discharged by means of outfalls into the Strait of Juan de Fuca (see project map).

At the two pump stations, wastewater received “preliminary treatment only,” says Elizabeth Scott, the deputy project director for the CRD. The raw sewage passed through 6 mm screens before being pumped through outfalls into the ocean. During wet weather events, infiltration and inflow into the area’s collection system resulted in sewer overflows that were discharged from shorter outfalls without undergoing any treatment at all, Scott says.

Well beyond secondary treatment

A regional government entity that provides such services as drinking water, wastewater treatment, solid waste handling, and parks and recreation, the CRD faced a deadline of Dec. 31, 2020, to begin operating the new WWTP. In 2017, the district hired Harbour Resource Partners — a consortium comprising AECOM Canada and Graham Infrastructure, a division of Graham Construction & Engineering Inc. — to deliver the treatment plant, a new pipeline beneath Victoria Harbour, and the new marine outfall by means of a design-build-finance approach.

A key design challenge concerned the small site that had been selected for the treatment facility. “One of the interesting design factors for us is that the plant site is actually pretty constrained for a facility that’s going to treat wastewater from the population base,” Scott says. “That drove some of the selection of the treatment technologies.”

For example, secondary treatment consists of moving bed biofilm reactor tanks followed by biological aerated filter units. These systems, both of which house media in an aerated environment to promote biofilm growth, require less space than traditional secondary aeration units. For tertiary treatment, wastewater then passes through fabric disc filters that have 5 µm openings.

This last step “reduces many of the remaining pharmaceuticals, hormones, microplastics, and other contaminants,” Scott says. “The key benefit of the tertiary (treatment) is that it removes contaminants of emerging concern that may not be regulated today but could be in the future.”

To date, the treatment plant has exceeded its regulatory requirements handily, particularly with regard to the key parameters of total suspended solids and five-day carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand. “The provincial regulatory requirements were to not exceed 45 mg/L for each,” Scott says. Canadian regulations at the federal level, meanwhile, require that the facility comply with a monthly average of less than 25 mg/L for both total suspended solids and carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand. “We’re actually operating the plant such that we can achieve a monthly average of 10 mg/L” for each of the two parameters, Scott says.

Good neighbor practices

Because the WWTP is located in an urban setting, “odor control was an important consideration for us,” Scott says. “One of the design criteria was that there be no detectable odors by residents. The way that was met was with a state-of-the-art odor-control system complete with a 24-hour monitoring system.”

As a first step, “all of the treatment processing tanks are covered and operate under negative air pressure,” Scott explains. In this way, air leaves the primary treatment tanks and enters a two-stage odor-control system. “We have a biotrickling filter system that uses bacterial growth to break down odorous compounds, followed by an activated carbon system that adsorbs most of the remaining compounds,” she says. Similarly, the less odorous air from the secondary treatment reactors undergoes treatment in an activated carbon system.

Sustainability also was a key design criterion. To this end, the operations and maintenance facility at the WWTP was built to comply with the gold rating level of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. Among the factors that helped achieve the gold rating is heat recovery. “Effluent passes through heat exchangers,” Scott says. “They remove heat from the wastewater, which is used to heat the buildings at the plant.” Use of the heat exchangers “obviously reduces the amount of electricity that we need to use for heating,” she says.

Another key factor in achieving the gold rating involved extensive use of green roofs as a means of managing stormwater on-site. Approximately 80 percent of the operations and maintenance building’s 1,600 sq m rooftop consists of green roof, Scott says.

A crab-friendly outfall

Treated effluent is discharged from the marine outfall at a depth of 60 m. Made of high-density polyethylene, the outfall is held in place by means of 350 concrete ballast weights, each of which weighs approximately 11,400 kg and is spaced 4 to 6 m apart.

As part of efforts to comply with environmental requirements, the CRD installed 20 small steel bridges, known as “crab ramps,” to facilitate the movement of crabs and other aquatic species over the outfall. Attached to the anchor weights, the bridges “act as ramps over the outfall to ensure that crab movement isn’t restricted by the presence of the outfall,” Scott says. “We have already seen various forms of sea life using (the ramps), including Dungeness and red rock crabs,” she notes.

In 2018, Harbour Resource Partners completed construction of a pipeline beneath Victoria Harbour to enable the Clover Point Pump Station to convey flows to the McLoughlin Point WWTP. The 1.1 m diameter steel pipeline was installed within a 1 km long tunnel to protect it against damage from ships or anchors in the busy harbor.

Turning solids into fuel

The limited space at the site of the WWTP left no room for solids handling. Therefore, the CRD opted to construct its Residuals Treatment Facility approximately 19 km to the north, at the site of the district’s Hartland Landfill. The Harbour Resource Management Group — a consortium comprising Bird Construction Inc., Maple Reinders PPP Ltd., and Synagro Capital — delivered the facility by means of a design-build-finance-operations-maintenance approach. Under the terms of the agreement, Harbour Resource Management Group will operate and maintain the facility for 20 years.

The facility, which can treat more than 14,000 dry tonnes of residuals annually, uses anaerobic digesters to break down solids, followed by centrifuges to conduct dewatering. The dewatered solids then are heated in a fluidized bed dryer at approximately 220 degrees Celsius to create dried pellets that meet British Columbia’s requirements for Class A biosolids — that is, biosolids that have undergone the most stringent treatment and have the fewest restrictions on their use. 

For the first five years of the facility’s operation, the finished pellets will be used as an alternative fuel source at cement manufacturing plants, Scott says. In this manner, the pellets “will displace nonrenewable fuel sources,” she notes. Similarly, biogas produced by the anaerobic digesters is collected and used to fuel the centrifuges and dryer. “The facility is thermally self-sufficient,” Scott notes. “We just require electricity for the lights and the pumps.”

Additional improvements

A new 250 mm diameter pipeline, equipped with three pump stations, was constructed to convey solids from the McLoughlin Point WWTP to the Residuals Treatment Facility. Meanwhile, liquid removed during the residuals treatment process is returned to the head of the WWTP by means of a new 12 km long, 300 mm diameter pipeline. The pipeline sends these flows to a small pump station, which then conveys the liquid to the existing collection system that serves the WWTP.

Additional system improvements included upgrades of the Clover Point and Macaulay Point pump stations as well as force mains leading from the facilities to the WWTP. However, both pump stations retain the ability to discharge to the ocean via their outfalls in the event of excessive wet weather events. Kenaidan Contracting Ltd. designed and built the new Clover Point and Macaulay Point pump stations.

Stantec conducted the indicative design for the remaining improvements to the collection system. “We had different consultants develop that indicative design through to final design,” Scott says. Among the improvements was the new 1.9 km long Trent Force Main, which upon completion this spring will deliver flows to the Clover Point Pump Station. Another such improvement is the Arbutus Attenuation Tank, which will increase system capacity during wet weather events. Also to be completed this spring, the 5,000 cu m concrete tank will store flows during storm events and then return flows to the conveyance system after capacity has returned.

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A new paper, “Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement as a Substitution to Natural Coarse Aggregate for the Production of Sustainable Pervious Concrete Pavement Mixes,” by Surya Kant Sahdeo; Gondaimei Ransinchung, Ph.D.; K. L. Rahul; and Solomon Debbarma, S.M.ASCE, in the Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering explores using reclaimed asphalt pavement as a substitute to natural coarse aggregate in the production of sustainable pervious concrete pavement mixes.

Abstract

This study discusses the effect of utilizing coarse reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) aggregates as a replacement to natural coarse aggregates (NCAs) for the production of pervious concrete pavement (PCP) mixes. Coarse RAP (RC) aggregates were utilized in proportions of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%, respectively. It was observed that the porosity and permeability coefficient of the PCP mixes increases considerably as the RAP replacement level increases. Meanwhile, the incorporation of RC was also found to negatively affect the mechanical properties of the PCP mixes. However, the compressive and flexural strength values were noted to be well within the prescribed limits (5–25  MPa and 1–3.2  MPa) required for a PCP mixture. On the other hand, the incorporation of RC was observed to reduce the hardened density, resistance to abrasion, and resistance against aggressive environment of chlorides and sulfates. Therefore, in order to prepare a PCP mixture such that there exists a fine balance in various properties, it is recommended that RC up to 50% may be utilized as a replacement to NCA. In view of achieving maximum sustainability, RC up to 100% may be completely utilized for the production of PCP mixes provided a binary gradation is adopted. Utilization of RAP in preparation of pervious concrete pavement mix will not only resolve the issues related to clearance of an enormous amount of RAP dumps, but would go a long way in dealing with various other environmental and ecological impacts.

Read the recommendations in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0003555

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A new paper, “Probabilistic Estimates of Tsunami Risk for Small Craft Marinas” by Adam S. Keen, S.M.ASCE ; Patrick J. Lynett, M.ASCE ; Martin L. Eskijian, M.ASCE ; Aykut Ayca, in the Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering, presents a risk framework that can be used by decision makers to assess existing and future tsunami risks to small craft harbors. Learn more about the methodology in the abstract below and see the full paper in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

Since the 2006 Kuril Islands tsunami, California small craft marinas have sustained over $100 million in total damage from tsunami events. Surveys conducted after the 2006 Kuril Islands and 2011 Japan tsunamis indicated that the mooring systems (e.g., cleats and pile guides) responsible for keeping the vessels and floating docks in place during an event are susceptible to failure. The aim of this paper is to present a risk framework that can be used by decision makers to assess future tsunami risks to small craft marinas. Here, the coupling of high-resolution numerical modeling and an existing statistical framework is extended to include observed damage states for structural elements. When applied to one small craft marina (in Noyo River Harbor), our methodology was able to replicate likely failure, which occurred well below previously identified damage thresholds. The results suggest infrastructure age and condition, in addition to the hazardous tsunami phenomenon, can contribute to cleat and pile guide failure.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)WW.1943-5460.0000599

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In “Nanoscale control of internal inhomogeneity enhances water transport in desalination membranes,” a recently published article in the journal Science, a team of academic and industry researchers document how minute differences in density within RO membranes affect their performance. The findings are expected to boost membrane performance significantly, potentially reducing the amount of energy required to operate membranes and thereby cutting the cost of a critical treatment process at the center of desalination and, increasingly, water reuse efforts.

Used in high-pressure treatment applications, an interfacially polymerized membrane includes an extremely thin film at the interface between a water-soluble diamine solution and an acid chloride solution. The resulting combination of materials produces a membrane that is relatively permeable to water but not to most impurities.

Exactly how water flows through membranes has not been well understood. “Reverse osmosis membranes are widely used for cleaning water, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about them,” said Manish Kumar, Ph.D., P.E., an associate professor in the Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin, in a Dec. 31 news release issued by the university. Kumar co-led the research team that recently published its findings regarding membrane performance. “We couldn’t really say how water moves through them, so all the improvements over the past 40 years have essentially been done in the dark,” Kumar said.

For example, membrane thickness was assumed to be a key factor in permeability, with thicker membranes thought to be less permeable. However, scientists at DuPont Water Solutions, a manufacturer of RO membranes, noticed something odd: Thicker membranes sometimes had greater permeability than thinner membranes. This finding prompted the DuPont scientists to partner with the academic researchers to try to solve the apparent conundrum.

In addition to DuPont and the University of Texas at Austin, the researchers hailed from Pennsylvania State University, Iowa State University, and the Dow Chemical Co. Funding for the research came from the National Science Foundation and DuPont.

Using multimodal electron microscopy, the researchers created 3D reconstructions of the internal structure of RO membranes at the nanoscale level. In this way, the research team was able to note variations in density within the membranes at a spatial resolution of approximately 1 nm. The researchers then modeled how water passes through the membranes.

Ultimately, the researchers determined that density is more important than thickness when it comes to membrane performance.

“We found that how you control the density distribution of the membrane itself at the nanoscale is really important for water-production performance,” said Enrique Gomez, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Penn State, in a Dec. 31 news release issued by the university. Along with Kumar, Gomez co-led the research team, which published its findings in the Science article.

By using the analytical techniques described in the Science article, membrane manufacturers will better understand how their production process affects membrane performance, Kumar told Civil Engineering.

Currently, manufacturers test their membranes to ensure proper performance, but the link between manufacturing process and membrane behavior is not always clear. “You don’t know what the chemistry did to lead to the performance you get,” Kumar says. “What we provide in this paper is a way to connect the two.”

The analytical approach developed by the research team will enable membrane makers to boost the performance of their products, Kumar says. “You can see what happened to the structure of the polymer, and then you know why your membrane is behaving a certain way,” he says. “It helps you design for the most efficient membranes that you can make using this method.”

In the study, the research team demonstrated that membranes can perform much more efficiently when optimized in terms of their density. “In the actual membranes we tested, we had 30 percent improved productivity,” Kumar says. Such an increase in productivity would be expected to result in significant energy savings during water treatment, he notes. “It won’t be exactly 30 percent,” Kumar says. “It will be less because there are other factors involved. But that’s the scale we’re talking about in terms of energy reduction, tens of percentages.”

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So when Emily Grubert, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, expresses concerns about how urgently her profession is approaching issues related to climate change, it’s only with an eye toward progress.

Grubert discussed climate change issues on a recent episode of the ASCE Plot Points podcast. Read the highlights below or listen to the complete interview.

Civil Engineering Source: Do you feel like civil and environmental engineering as professions are where they need to be in relation to climate change?

Grubert: I don’t. I think a lot of professions probably aren’t. I think as a society in general we’re not where we need to be in relation to climate change.

But I think particularly within the field of civil and environmental engineering, where we are interacting so much with the built environment and so much with the aspects of the built environment that really affect people’s day-to-day lives, we have not professionally integrated some of the implications of climate change enough yet in my view.

I think part of that is related to the fact that a lot of the regulatory structures that we work within are also not there. There’s been some really interesting research on stormwater design standards and such and how those are actually affected by potential climate change impacts. So there’s a bit of push and pull here. But I think that as a profession we are not dealing with it to the extent that we’re going to need to.

Source: So how do we get the profession to the place where it needs to be?

Grubert: I think one of the really important places where we can take a leadership role professionally – and I’m an academic, so I think this particularly falls on that side of it where we are training civil and environmental engineers – is just making it clear to people how much this actually will affect professional practice and design in particular. … Of course, having a regulatory basis to act on some of that knowledge is important, and I think will help a lot if we can get to that place. But even from this kind of internal perspective, I think really understanding how a lot of the assumptions we’ve made as a profession for a long period of time maybe don’t hold anymore is an important place to go.

One of the things that I think about a lot, personally, is that we do accept a lot of different forms of dynamism when we’re doing design. So things like the population changing, things like understanding the regulations about water contamination changes, things like this, we’re used to incorporating those into our design decisions.

I think framing some of the impacts we expect to see from climate change in the same way – sort of like you plan for population growth or population decline or whatever it is you’re facing locally – planning to actually know that you are going to see some impacts and some uncertainty around particularly water and temperature in the future is a really important direction for us to go.

Source: Why do you think it’s easier for folks to accept planning for changes in population than it is to accept mitigating for climate change?

Grubert: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think there are a couple of different potential explanations for it.

And I have not looked into the one true scientific answer to this, but intuitively to me, I think it really is because as a profession we have such a safety focus, in this particular case, we’re maybe losing a little bit of sight of what these big changes could mean versus what we are comfortable with and what we understand.

With population, we have a long history of understanding that that matters when making decisions. So being conservative and trying to be protective of the public means acknowledging this historical pattern that we know matters, and that we know really, really affects the way we do projects.

I think with climate … the tension really emerges where we have a profession where we want to be pretty sure about how our stuff is going to perform and combining that with something where there’s this message that maybe we’re not quite sure what’s going to happen, it feels safer to rely on what we know and rely on what we know has worked in the past. And that tendency to extrapolate from the past rather than anticipating the future is part of what I think is going on here. …

And it is a change in practice, even though a lot of the rhetoric and a lot of the goals are fairly similar: protecting health, safety, and welfare.

Source: If I’m a civil engineer and I’m in the middle of my career, I’m 50 years old, doing pretty well, and I want to keep on doing pretty well for another 20 years, what’s in it for me? Why should I take a risk potentially and stop doing things I’ve been doing successfully for the last three decades?

Grubert: It’s a fair question. I think one of the ways to reframe that potentially is to think about whether it actually is a departure from we’ve been doing.

I think if you’ve been successful working for the past three decades, a lot of that probably has been a focus on the public and a focus on doing really good work that is enhancing the human condition. So, framing it that way, actually accounting for climate change and accounting for this changed condition that matters for the types of things that we care about as a profession and as individuals, I think is a fairly obvious next step.

In terms of what that means locally, though, indeed that probably does affect practice a bit. But I think the attitude of doing really good work that creates public good is not the thing that changes, but some of the specifications may. And so to that, I think really it does come down to an ethical issue. We’re designing long-lived infrastructure in many cases. We’re maintaining infrastructure that is intended to exist for a long time. We are developing systems that really influence people’s lives.

“As a profession we have such a safety focus, in this particular case, we’re maybe losing a little bit of sight of what these big changes could mean versus what we are comfortable with and what we understand.”

Emily Grubert

So adjusting practice to account for a new truth I think really is an ethical matter at the end of the day. I don’t think from a top-down perspective that does change people’s approach to their jobs very much, but it does change the implementation.

Source: Tell me about the socio-technical things you see changing at the same time that are probably part and parcel of climate change but are also a separate thing.

Grubert: We kind of see climate change as this big external change that’s happening to the fundamental physical system around us. … And I think that as we plan around climate change, not forgetting that there are other things that are changing at the same time that are a little bit more within human control, in the form of socio-technical systems, that is really important to ensuring that our designs around climate change actually reflect all the dynamism that we’re experiencing.

Specifically, I work on energy systems, particularly how energy systems interact with the environment. … The power system is changing dramatically. Going from … a primarily fossil-based energy system and a particularly fossil-based electricity system where power can be generated on demand … into a world where, largely for carbon reasons, we’re moving toward renewable resource use, that has a lot of interesting implications for the way that the grid is operated.

Even here, planning around both of those transitions at the same time where there is this external climate forcer but also this responsive socio-technical difference where we’re fundamentally operating the electricity system differently is important as we model.

I work a decent amount on building systems as well. One of the things that we’re seeing as we think about the transition of the energy system – again partially in response to climate change – is that some of the assumptions that we’ve historically made are actually wrong when you consider the way that people are responding to these impulses.

Historically there’s been a relatively big focus on energy efficiency in buildings. And that’s still really, really important, but because we’re responding to climate change and a variety of other issues in part by making the grid cleaner, a lot of the energy efficiency measures that we may have taken have now very different performance standards because you’re not saving electricity that’s as dirty as it used to be.

So in the past you might’ve been willing to do something that used a lot of embodied energy in order to create a more efficient building structure over time. Maybe that doesn’t make sense from an environmental perspective or a cost perspective anymore when the grid changes. So recognizing that there’s dynamism not just in the climate system but also in the response to the climate system and in the response to a lot of other things, frankly, as well I think is really important to remember as we do consider how our design process and our maintenance processes, our operational processes, need to change in response to this very significant issue.

Source: When you look at things and say, “Wow, what we thought was cutting-edge practice 15, 20 years ago already needs to change,” does that scare you? Or is that kind of just part of how this works?

Grubert: I mean it worries me a lot. I don’t know if it scares me, partially because I am in that privileged position where I probably will be dead before it’s really, truly 100 percent bad. I’m not trying to argue that we’re not already experiencing impacts of climate change and that it won’t get worse during my lifetime, but I think one of the things that does worry me quite a bit is that we may try to make decisions that are oriented around a better environmental outcome without fully challenging all of the assumptions that go into that decision and therefore will make bad decisions.

So there’s some historical examples of this, where we think we’re doing something that’s good for the environment but we didn’t fully understand the system that well. So recycling a lot of the time can be more resource-intensive than landfilling. And with all of this stuff, you’re making tradeoffs across a number of different decision criteria, and you make a choice that favors one thing over another, and somebody else might make the opposite choice. But I think when we think about climate impact in particular, there are a couple of types of assumptions that we may make really well-intentioned that don’t turn out to be true, and therefore cause us to spend a lot of effort and a lot of capital transitioning to something that isn’t as useful as we thought it might be. …

I think we could make bad decisions without realizing that we’re making bad decisions if we’re not very careful to challenge all of the assumptions that go into those choices.

Source: But that being said, not making any decision is worse than any of those options, right?

Grubert: Yeah, absolutely. I guess my mission then is to recognize the assumptions when they’re there, because I think it’s really easy to just assume something is true and that it is statically true and that there’s no way that’s going to change. So when I think about how I try to train my students really looking for those hidden assumptions and trying to use the best possible information that we have, that’s all we can really do.

Because like you said, we have to make decisions. I just hope we can make decisions recognizing when we’re actually choosing among different assumptions and actually making choices rather than kind of ignoring something that maybe we could have seen and not incorporating the best information we currently have.

The post Are civil engineers doing enough to account for climate change? appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

Last month, ASCE completed a project at its Reston, Virginia, headquarters that is all that and more. Finding its entire parking lot in need of a complete overhaul in 2018, the Society turned to the ASCE Foundation for a solution that would demonstrate its commitment to the principles of sustainable design and environmental stewardship. The Foundation rose to the challenge by engaging donors, volunteers, and vendors to design and install permeable pavement, stormwater filtration systems, and other technologies that could help keep more than half the site’s potentially contaminated stormwater runoff out of the local watershed.

“The Foundation saw this as an opportunity to lead by example, using (the Society) headquarters as a guide for how to retrofit a parking lot with environmentally friendly practices and using the site as a learning laboratory to highlight potential interventions,” says Matthew J. Jones, P.E., LEED AP BD+C, M.ASCE, a senior principal of Magnusson Klemencic Associates and the parking lot project manager. The effort, he says, offered an “ideal opportunity to incorporate green stormwater infrastructure to improve the quality of runoff leaving the site as well as to slow the release of stormwater from the site.”

Reston is located in northern Virginia, within the Difficult Run watershed, which drains into the Potomac River and eventually into the Chesapeake Bay. According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data cited by chesapeakebay.net, 80 percent of the bay’s tidal regions are partially or fully impaired by toxic contaminants. “Difficult Run, and in particular the portion that ASCE’s headquarters lies within, is highly urbanized,” explains Mike Rolband, P.E., PWD, PWS Emeritus, M.ASCE, the chief technical officer for Wetland Studies and Solutions Inc. and a core member of the large team of experts who donated their expertise to the project.

When is a parking lot more than a parking lot? When it is a test bed for low-impact development techniques, best management practices in stormwater control, and sustainable development.

“Much of (Reston) was developed prior to the implementation of current stormwater-management requirements (that were enacted) to control water quantity and quality,” Rolband continues. So nearby streams are subject to high levels of total suspended solids, phosphorus, and nitrogen — all of which can eventually damage the Chesapeake Bay.

By renovating the parking lot with more environmentally responsible techniques, ASCE hopes to do its part to help reduce stormwater runoff and improve the quality of the water that does discharge from its surfaces. The new parking lot includes sections built with two types of permeable pavers and two types of underground stormwater filtration units. The remainder of the parking lot surface was milled and repaved with asphalt containing recycled tires.

Let it flow
Twenty-four parking spots at the front of the building were rebuilt with permeable interlocking concrete pavement supplied by the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute’s Foundation for Education and Research. David R. Smith, ICPI’s technical director, explains that the 80 mm thick, roughly 100 by 200 mm pavers are made of solid concrete but are spaced roughly 10 mm apart, their joints filled with a permeable aggregate that traps sediment as water flows through.

The water flows to stone base and subbase layers that serve as a reservoir. “The 300 mm thick pavement base and subbase consists of open-graded aggregate with a porosity of about 40 percent,” Smith explains, “so it can store about 100 mm of water while infiltrating it into the soil subgrade.”

The stone reservoir can store and infiltrate flows from a 100-year storm event, he says. “Because the soil subgrade is sloped, there are 30 mm thick, 200 mm high, (polyvinyl chloride), vertical check dams spaced about every 5 m to detain and infiltrate the water stored in the subbase reservoir, rather than allowing it to run downhill on the subgrade.”

Around the corner from this area, 11 parking spots were created using Stormcrete precast porous concrete panels, made by Porous Technologies LLC. The panels are “manufactured with a concrete mix that has a uniform coarse aggregate gradation and includes minimal fine aggregates,” explains Gregg Novick, the president of Porous Technologies. “These materials are used in a proprietary mix that results in a large volume of interconnected voids — 15 to 20 percent voids.” The voids allow stormwater to pass through the panels into the soils below and, from there, into a biofiltration structure called FocalPoint, made by ACF Environmental.

Rob Woodman, P.E., M.ASCE, the New England/New York regional manager for ACF, explains that the FocalPoint system uses high-flow media to treat the runoff faster and in a smaller footprint than traditional systems. “The system treats for common urban runoff pollutants, including total suspended solids, phosphorus, and nitrogen, while also providing reductions in oils, grease, and bacteria,” he says. After that treatment, the runoff flows through an outlet pipe to the existing storm drain. “A domed overflow riser holds and conveys larger storm events to this same ultimate discharge location,” Woodman says.

Another innovative technology that is being tested as part of the project is called Filterra, made by Contech Engineered Solutions LLC. Frank Birney, the firm’s senior stormwater consultant for northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., explains that this 13 by 7 ft filtering unit was “shoehorned” into a spot in the sidewalk near the building’s front steps “between finished pavement and existing utilities, behind the curb, and next to the building.”

Runoff will enter this unit not through the pavers but through an existing curb inlet, Birney explains. Stormwater will flow through a specially designed filter-media mixture “contained in a landscaped concrete container,” he says. “The filter media captures and immobilizes pollutants; those pollutants are then decomposed, volatilized, and incorporated into the biomass of the Filterra system’s micro- and macro-fauna and -flora.” The treated runoff is then discharged.

Rubber meets the road
The remainder of the parking lot — some 105,750 sq ft — was repaved with 1,241 tons of asphalt made with recycled tires, supplied by Asphalt Plus LLC. William G. Buttlar, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE — a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Missouri and holder of the Glen Barton endowed chair in flexible pavement systems — identified Asphalt Plus as the industrial partner for the asphalt paving part of the project. Buttlar also assisted with the mix design and performance testing at the Mizzou Asphalt Pavement and Innovation Laboratory. He explains that the pavement for the project included 11 lb of Elastiko brand chemically engineered crumb rubber per ton of asphalt, which equates to roughly 722 scrap tires that were recycled and kept from landfills. 

Engineered crumb rubber is ideal for pavement — not just for parking lots but for standard roads and highways as well — for a number of reasons, Buttlar explains. “Rubber helps to stiffen the mix, reducing rutting potential,” he says. “It makes the pavement more strain-tolerant, which reduces the rate of cracking. And when microcracking eventually starts, the rubber crumbs help to slow or stop the movement of the cracks.” Moreover, he says, the pavement lasts longer, requires less maintenance, and uses less material than standard pavement. “In terms of life-cycle cost, crumb rubber asphalt roads are cheaper than standard hot-mix asphalt roads.”

The parking area also includes a new vegetated courtyard, which features pavers engraved with the names of members, ASCE Foundation donors, and others. Without these donations, as well as the in-kind and materials donations made toward the project, the cost would have been $700,000. With those donations, the actual outlay that the Foundation made for the services and materials was reduced to just $440,000.

The project, which incorporated ASCE’s technical guidance and engineering standards in its design construction, will serve as a demonstration of all these technologies. Special signage explaining its various components will help tell the story to visitors, including Society members and local students, once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

“I hope this project will demonstrate how a parking lot can be retrofitted to improve stormwater runoff leaving a site while highlighting a few of the green stormwater infrastructure elements that are available to project teams,” says Jones. “As civil engineers, we have a duty to find ways to make the built environment more environmentally friendly.”

This article first appeared in the January/February 2021 issue of Civil Engineering as “With a More Sustainable Parking Lot, ASCE Walks the Walk.”

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Modeling flooding in urban watersheds is challenging because of the spatial variations and interactions between land cover, landscape characteristics, and precipitation that affect the hydrologic response. A new paper in the Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, “Modeling Storm Sewer Networks and Urban Flooding in Roanoke, Virginia, with SWMM and GSSHA,” by Conrad E. Brendel, Randel L. Dymond, and Marcus F. Aguilar, presents a case study describing the development and evaluation of both a semidistributed and a fully distributed model to address urban flooding issues in a medium-sized urbanized area.

Abstract

Modeling urban flooding is challenging because of complex spatial variations and interactions between precipitation, land cover, and drainage networks. This paper presents a case study of the development of two hydrology and hydraulics models – the semidistributed stormwater management model (SWMM) and the fully distributed gridded surface/subsurface hydrologic analysis (GSSHA) model – to simulate the hydrologic response of two neighboring urban watersheds with large storm sewer networks in the city of Roanoke, Virginia. Both models were calibrated and validated for the two watersheds based on nine events (May-October 2018), and the models were assessed on their ability to replicate measured stream discharge and storm sewer flow depths. The findings from the study indicate that both models reasonably capture the observed hydrologic responses but that each model offers unique benefits. Overall, SWMM’s value to the city is its ability to provide detailed information regarding the hydraulic conditions within the city’s storm sewer network, whereas GSSHA’s value to the city is its ability to predict the duration and spatial extent of flooding in two dimensions.

Read the full paper in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0002021

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A bird in flight was, appropriately, the inspiration for the new Mori Hosseini Student Union at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Located in Daytona Beach, Florida, adjacent to the Daytona Beach International Airport, Embry-Riddle focuses on aviation and aerospace education along with business, engineering, and other disciplines. The roughly 180,000 sq ft student union — named for a prominent alumnus, donor, and chair of the university’s board of trustees — was designed by ikon.5 architects and engineered by the international engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti. Described by the architects as an “aeronautical athenaeum,” the new student union houses student meeting spaces, a library, an amphitheater, a cafeteria and food vendors, student government offices, common areas, and other administrative spaces. The structure of the $70 million, four-story building features a soaring, curving design with multiple cantilevers. These include the supports called wing beams that help create a roof overhang with cantilevers up to 25 ft and a spine girder that runs the full length of the building footprint, cantilevering approximately 50 ft. 

Cantilevers seemed a natural extension of the avian theme, says Chris Christoforou, P.E., LEED AP BD+C, a principal in the Newark, New Jersey, office of Thornton Tomasetti. In fact, cantilevers were “the first thing that came to mind” for Christoforou once he knew the building design represented a bird because to him, the basic shape of a bird features a series of cantilevers. “The beak of a bird is a cantilever, the tail is a cantilever, the wings are cantilevers,” he explains. And once he determined that there would be multiple cantilevers in the design, it was clear to him that the ideal material with which to build this birdlike building was steel.

“Nothing can get you the depth-to-span ratio that steel will,” Christoforou says, adding that steel was also much easier to work with than concrete because it would not need shoring or formwork. At the same time, steel can be more complicated to bend or curve into shapes than concrete, he adds. As a result, the engineers and architects worked together closely to “develop very creative details” to generate smooth surfaces for the roof structure, without relying on breaks, segments, or facets, Christoforou says. 

Intended as a signature structure on the Embry-Riddle campus, the student union includes the 120,000 sq ft main building with the curving roof as well as an adjacent, two-story, 60,000 sq ft building with a more conventional design that serves as an events space. Separated by an expansion joint, the two steel-framed buildings required approximately 2,000 tons of steel, with many of the most critical support systems exposed to view. 

The extensive use of exposed steel made Christoforou feel like the proverbial “kid in the candy store,” he says. “There’s nothing better for a structural engineer than to see his work exposed!” But with that exposure also came challenges. “When things are exposed and expressed, when they become a feature in the architecture, nothing can be left to chance,” Christoforou says. For example, when an engineer designs connections between, say, a beam and a column in other buildings in which such features will be hidden, it is fine to use large bolts or welds that “do their job efficiently but aren’t aesthetically pleasing,” he says. “But if this column connection will be visible, within a few feet of where a person is standing, it has to look right; it has to look nice. The bolts need to be symmetrical, and the welds must meet a different finish standard.”

Such details are not always within the engineer’s control, of course, which is why the design team created 3D computer models that focused on select, prominent details, such as the points of intersection between girders and columns or other aspects that were critical to maintaining the architect’s vision. These models were included as part of the deliverables given to potential contractors, Christoforou says, which was the design team’s way of telling contractors that “when you bid the job, this is how the final product should look.”

Such models proved extremely useful in helping contractors understand the complex geometry of the roof, which curves in both the north-south and east-west directions, almost like a turtle’s shell, Christoforou says. “We couldn’t translate it into x-, y-, and z-coordinates on a blueprint — it wouldn’t do justice to the design,” he adds. 

To create these 3D models, the design team relied on several software systems, including Tekla Structures, manufactured by Trimble Solutions USA Inc., of Kennesaw, Georgia, and Grasshopper 3D, part of Rhinoceros 3D, manufactured by Robert McNeel & Associates, of Seattle. Revit, manufactured by Autodesk Inc., of Mill Valley, California, was also used to size key structural elements. Although Christoforou had given contractors 3D models before, the student union project was the first time he had used such models with the architect specifically to help contractors generate the proper geometry of a structure. During the construction phase, the design team periodically visited the fabrication shops “to answer questions and observe the (fabrication) of the steel before arrival on-site,” according to an ikon.5 description of the project.

Thornton Tomasetti also created a set of guidelines to help the contractor and subcontractors erect the structural elements of the student union in the proper sequences — on this project, quadrant by quadrant rather than floor by floor — to avoid imposing too much loading on any point too early, Christoforou says. Similar guidelines have proved useful to the firm in its design of sports facilities, which also often feature large cantilevers, long spans, and complex geometries, Christoforou adds.

On the architect’s website, a soft-blue-and-white watercolor image compares the student union’s curving, bowed roof with the wide wings of a large white bird, floating on the wind overhead. Mimicking where the bird’s spine would be is the spine girder of the building, a 200 ft long element that follows the longitudinal axis of the building. Together with a series of W30 cantilevered wing beams, the spine girder supports a glass skylight, “allowing the students of aviation the ability to look skyward while inside,” according to the ikon.5 description. The cantilevering spine girder consists of two side-by-side, wide-flange shapes that extend beyond the facade. 

The long span and other factors made it impossible to use a single wide-flanged beam, Christoforou says. Instead, a pair of W24 beams laced together by a top plate provided the necessary strength and stiffness while also minimizing the overall depth of the section. Channels on top of the two wide-flanged beams also support the main gutter that runs along the middle of the roof. 

The deflections of this giant girder and the accompanying wing beams that help create the roof overhang are controlled by four external arches — composed of 4 ft deep built-up box girders — and a series of vertical struts. Extending from the ground to the roof at its northern and southern ends, the arches curve in plan and elevation. Welded to the topside of the arches and connected to the underside of perimeter steel beams, the steel struts are made from 12 by 8 in. hollow structural sections (HSS) and vary in length to follow the roof geometry. The connections of the struts to the roof beams featured slotted holes to permit roof deflection during construction. 

The struts add to the student union’s avian imagery, conveying “a featherlike quality,” according to ikon.5. Although originally intended as an architectural feature, the struts also serve as structural supports that help tie down the roof and resist wind uplift. Hurricane-level winds can reach up to 145 mph at the site.

The main building’s framing system includes conventional braced steel frames and a composite floor system. The floor comprises 6.5 in. thick lightweight concrete on a 3 in. metal deck that spans approximately 11 ft between W18 floor beams. The W18 beams are supported by W21 girders that are supported by round HSS columns on a 22 by 34 ft grid. 

Three monumental stairs curve in both plan and elevation. The stringers of these signature elements were created with curved W16 beams with side plates. Other stairs are located near the perimeter of the building and are enclosed by steel braced-frame cores that feature channel sections for the stringers and landings that are suspended from the floor framing with rods. Elevators are also located in the northwest quadrant of the structure.

Within the main building, a four-story open space contains an atrium and stepped seating areas that overlook the ground-level lobby. Because extensive openings were required in the slabs on levels two and three to create the atrium, many of the main girder beams were cantilevered from the HSS columns. The creation of the moment connections through these HSS columns was a challenge, Christoforou adds, because the HSS walls were generally thinner than the typical wide-flanged column, and thus it became difficult to transfer the forces. Varying from five-eighths to three-fourths of an inch, the thicknesses of the HSS column walls were critical to the strength and stiffness of the moment connections. The solution involved cutting the columns in two places to install steel plates at the top and bottom flanges of the beams that had to pass through the columns. With these connections, the moment transferred from beam to beam by way of the flange plates without requiring the forces to be transferred through the columns themselves.

Cantilevered girders made from built-up sections of wide-flanged beams were cut to follow the geometry of the stepped seating in elevation. Secondary beams, curved in plan, supported the stepped areas, which featured similar construction to the floor framing system: lightweight concrete on metal deck.

The multistory amphitheater was made with cold-formed construction above the structural slab. It required considerable coordination to identify the locations of vertical posts to make sure the posts aligned with steel beams below. Certain areas within the student union, such as the library, also required strengthened slabs and slab depressions to accommodate the shelf stacks. The heavily glazed facades required mullions strengthened by vertical steel struts composed of HSS elements with half-inch-thick side plates.

A roof terrace on the second floor provides students with views of the adjacent runway of Daytona Beach International Airport and rocket launches from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, roughly 50 mi to the south, according to ikon.5.

Because the bearing capacity of the soil was 3,000 psf — according to the geotechnical engineer, Universal Engineering Sciences — the foundations of the student union building featured conventional slab-on-grade construction. Typically 6 in. thick, the slab featured certain 8 in. zones to accommodate the higher loads of certain mechanical system spaces and other specific areas with greater demands. The HSS columns were supported on isolated concrete footings that varied in size from 5 by 4 ft to 15 by 15 ft, and the braced-frame cores were supported on combined footings to resist uplift forces. There are no underground spaces.

The roof’s complex geometry and architecturally exposed structural steel elements included the main spine beam that is aligned in the north-south direction and a series of moment frames in the east-west direction. A moment connection links the cantilevering spine beam to the HSS columns, which extend to the roof. The roof features a 3 in. deck supported by W12 secondary purlins that curve in elevation and are spaced approximately 6 to 7 ft apart on center. The HSS columns support the wing beams which, in turn, support the purlins. 

The stability of the roof is provided by a combination of moment frames — composed of the roof girders and columns — the cantilevered action of the columns from the level four columns, and the indirect bracing action of the external arches. The detailing of the roof was also especially challenging, Christoforou recalls, but the Tekla models and documentation of the main steel connections enabled the architect to clearly visualize and understand the final appearance of these connections. These resources also greatly helped the contractor during the assembly of these connections on-site, he says.

Designed as a high-performance, resource-efficient building, the student union features various sustainable details. For example, the enormous curving roof provides shading from the harsh Florida sun while also collecting rainwater and siphoning it to below-grade cisterns for storage and later use in campus irrigation. The lighting design “reinforces and highlights the architectural forms and spaces that are inspired by flight,” while also enhancing “the airiness of the structure,” according to ikon.5. “In reinforcing the organic architectural expression of the spaces, the overall effect creates a glowing beacon at the campus entry.” 

For Christoforou, working on the Mori Hosseini Student Union has been one of the high points of his career. It was not the largest project he ever worked on, he says, “but it was so much fun doing it!” Moreover, the vision, creativity, and collaboration with the architects at ikon.5 “was truly inspirational to me,” he stresses. Christoforou especially acknowledges the contributions of his former colleague Iliana Karagiannakou, P.E., who served as Thornton Tomasetti’s project engineer on the Mori Hosseini Student Union. Karagiannakou has since left the firm. 

The exposed structural steel also adds a personally rewarding aspect to the project. “When you walk through the building, you know you touched every element,” Christoforou says. “You see something (and) you know that’s not by accident; that’s how we drew it. It’s what makes this one special to me!”

PROJECT CREDITS Client Embry-­Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida Architect ikon.5 architects, New York City Structural engineer Thornton Tomasetti, Newark, New Jersey, office Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering and fire protection engineering OCI Associates, Maitland, Florida Civil engineer Parker Mynchenberg & Associates Inc., Holly Hill, Florida Geotechnical engineer Universal Engineering Sciences, South Daytona, Florida General contractor Barton Malow Co., Orlando, Florida Landscape architect Prosser, Jacksonville, Florida Lighting ­designer Fisher Marantz Stone, New York City

This article first appeared in the January/February 2021 issue of Civil Engineering as “Flight Plan.”

The cover photograph is courtesy of Brad Feinknopf.

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In December 2020 ASCE completed a project at its Reston, Virginia, headquarters that demonstrates low-impact development techniques, best management practices in stormwater control, and sustainable development — all funded by donations to ASCE’s Foundation.

Reston is located in northern Virginia, within the Difficult Run watershed, which drains into the Potomac River and eventually into the Chesapeake Bay. According to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited by chesapeakebay.net, 80 percent of the bay’s tidal regions are partially or fully impaired by toxic contaminants.

By renovating the entire parking lot of its headquarters site with environmentally responsible techniques, ASCE is doing its part to help reduce stormwater runoff and improve the quality of the water that does discharge from its surfaces and into the watershed and bay. The new parking lot includes sections built with two types of permeable pavers and two types of underground stormwater filtration units. The remainder of the parking lot surface was milled and repaved with asphalt made with recycled tires.

Twenty-four parking spots at the front of the building were rebuilt with permeable interlocking concrete pavement supplied by the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute’s Foundation for Education and Research. The image in slide 1 above shows how the system works: The 80 mm thick pavers are made of solid concrete and spaced roughly 10 mm apart, their joints filled with a permeable aggregate that traps sediment as water flows through. Stormwater flows to stone base and subbase layers below that can store about 100 mm of water while infiltrating it into the sloped soil subgrade. Polyvinyl chloride vertical check dams, spaced roughly every 5 m, help detain and infiltrate the water.

Sidewalks at the front and side of the building, as well as 11 parking spaces on the side, are paved with Stormcrete precast porous concrete panels, made by Porous Technologies LLC, as seen in slide 2. The panels are made with a concrete mix that has uniform coarse aggregate and very little fine aggregate. This leaves roughly 15 to 20 percent of each panel as void space. Stormwater passes through those voids into the soils and a perforated underdrain below, as seen in slide 3. From there, it flows into an underground biofiltration structure called FocalPoint, made by ACF Environmental, which is covered with soil that is planted with trees and other vegetation to create a patio, as seen in slide 4.

Another innovative technology that is being tested as part of the project is a stormwater filtration system called Filterra, made by Contech Engineered Solutions LLC. This 13 by 7 ft filtering unit was installed beneath one of the building’s sidewalks and captures and treats stormwater from a curb inlet.

The remainder of the parking lot — some 105,750 sq ft — was repaved with 1,241 tons of asphalt made with recycled tires, supplied by Asphalt Plus LLC. Roughly 722 scrap tires were recycled and kept from landfills by using this innovative, durable product.

The project, which incorporated ASCE’s technical guidance and engineering standards in its design construction, will serve as a demonstration of all these technologies. Special signage explaining its various components will help tell the story to visitors, including Society members and local students, once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

The post Slideshow: ASCE project demonstrates green stormwater management techniques appeared first on Civil Engineering Source.

They get to college and want to start a business together.

So far, so good. But what they do next is the plot twist.

Instead of looking for an innovative solution to build their business around, they went in search of a problem.

“We started with the problem because we wanted to do something that would solve real issues for our customers and for the world,” said Jack Lamuraglia, one of the aforementioned friends and now a senior at Clarkson University and cofounder of KLAW Industries.

“We got the idea to approach business this way from our mentors at the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator and from a book called The Lean Startup. The Lean Startup is a popular book among software startups, and we wanted to apply the ideas to the concrete and recycling industries.”

Lamuraglia and his cofounders, Jacob Kumpon and Tanner Wallis, found their way through the search for a problem to a solution that turns recycled glass into a pozzolan that can be used in concrete.

ASCE honored KLAW Industries with the Undergraduate Student Innovation Award (and $1,000 prize) at the 2020 ASCE Innovation Contest during the ASCE 2020 Convention in October.

Developed as part of the ASCE Grand Challenge, the ASCE Innovation Contest serves as a springboard for forward-looking infrastructure ideas. In its fifth year, the contest invited finalists to showcase their innovations before an international audience through a virtual competition during the Convention.

But back to the team’s quest to find a problem. In fact, they found multiple problems to solve. What they saw at the recycling facilities they toured was trash bin after trash bin filled with glass.

“No one really talks about it, but all that goes to landfill,” Lamuraglia said. “None of the glass gets recycled. So we started there. We tried to figure out every possible use for that glass.”

They worked on a variety of ideas before landing on another problem area they’d been learning about – the rising price of concrete. Traditional pozzolans like fly ash are disappearing as coal and steel become less prevalent in the Northeast.

And here is where KLAW Industries’ story switches into the solution portion of the plot. KLAW developed a new concrete pozzolan they call Pantheon, derived from recycled glass.

“It was kind of a two-for-one,” Lamuraglia said. “The glass gets recycled, and we can replace cement in the concrete industry, lowering their cost, solving their problem, all while helping the environment.

“This is an environmental solution that also saves money. It does both. That’s really where we see the excitement, when people start to realize it’s not just the new green thing. It’s also a cost-saver that makes their product better. The fact that it does both is the big thing.”

The KLAW team graduates this spring with plans to open a pilot plant in Binghamton this summer to serve several nearby recycling facilities and concrete manufacturers. The hope is to test the business model and scale production up from there.

“Winning the ASCE Innovation Contest helped us in a lot of ways,” Lamuraglia said. “It was definitely a confidence boost, having the top experts in the industry go through what we were doing and conclude our product was innovative and interesting. We went on to talk further with a lot of the participating members after the competition, and they gave us feedback and connections in the industry we would otherwise not have.”

Learn more about KLAW Industries and Pantheon.

Read more about the 2020 ASCE Innovation Contest winners: https://source.asce.org/tag/innovation-contest/

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The smart window

The window consists of two glass panes sandwiching a liquid mixture of hydrogel, water, and stabilizer. The transparent mixture turns opaque when exposed to heat and blocks sunlight. When cool, it returns to its original clear state.

By blocking the sun during the day, the smart windows regulate solar transmission into buildings’ interiors.

Water has a high heat capacity, which means the windows can store a large amount of energy during the daytime instead of transferring it through the glass into buildings. This means less air conditioning is required to regulate interior temperatures. The heat captured by the windows releases slowly during the night. “The stored heat will be released to the environment and the room,” says Yi Long, Ph.D, a senior lecturer at the university’s School of Materials Science & Engineering. “The best location to apply this technology is in countries where the daily temperature fluctuation is high. The noon heat can be stored and released during the cooler time at night.”

Tests show promise

Long and her research team conducted various tests to evaluate the potential efficiency improvements these windows could deliver. In simulations conducted using real-life building models and weather data from Shanghai; Las Vegas; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Singapore, the windows demonstrated they could save 45 percent of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning costs over normal glass windows.

The smart windows also moved a building’s peak heat to a later time in the day, which might help in less energy being consumed for air conditioning during the workday.

Field experiments have shown promising results. At noon, the hottest time of the day, the smart window registered a lower temperature (122 degrees) than a regular glass equivalent (183). The hydrogel-based layer had another positive side effect: sound dampening, with noise reduced 15 percent more than with double-glazed equivalents. While double-glazed windows, which essentially sandwich a layer of air in between the panels, usually deliver good soundproofing, the hydrogel in these smart windows gives an additional layer of sound insulation.

The efforts from Long and her team add to an already extensive body of work being conducted on how to improve the energy efficiency of windows. Work done by other researchers on spacers, types of window mechanisms (sliding, awning, hopper), and gas infills between panels also address the problem in complementary ways.

Thin-film coatings are already being used in the industry to deliver low-emissivity windows. But Long and her researchers maintain that the coatings are expensive and only focus on cutting down infrared light. Cutting down visible light is equally important as it plays a significant role in buildings heating up.

Manufacturing and production

Because the primary efficiency delivering component is a liquid, the windows are easy to fabricate because the mixture is essentially poured between two glass panels. This process delivers uniformity, which the team believes will help manufacture the windows at scale in any shape or size.

In terms of longevity, “the hydrogel can last more than a decade,” Long says. “For maintenance, we have to make the panel seal well. This could (borrow from) the experience of double-glazed glass manufacturers since they seal gas.”

The research team expects the windows to be of most use in office buildings that operate during the day. An added benefit: The smart window glass “is 20 percent cheaper to make than low-emissivity, energy-efficient glass,” Long says.

Max Shtein, Ph.D., a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan, says the potential energy savings from these windows makes them very compelling. “They’re very intriguing possibilities,” Shtein says, adding he is very enthusiastic about the energy angle.

Shtein does harbor a few concerns about end-of-life handling and adoption bottlenecks due to the windows’ appearance. “Building facades tend to be subject to rather tough aesthetic selection criteria, so it remains to be seen what can be done with this technology in terms of appearance — from the outside and the inside of the building,” Shtein points out.

But that need not be a deterrent, Shtein says. “On the flip side, there is a great opportunity to get creative and blend engineering and artistry at different scales to achieve the desired look,” he says.

Long and her team are looking for collaborations with industry partners so they can move the concept beyond the lab to the real world.

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ASCE is pursuing an ASCE/ANSI accredited, outcome-based, life-cycle consensus standard, intended to guide sustainable infrastructure development across all infrastructure sectors. As a mandatory standard, the provisions of the standard are intended to be suitable for regulatory or contractual purposes.

ASCE members can review the standard and provide comment through Jan. 25.

For additional questions, contact James Neckel, ASCE’s codes and standards coordinator, at [email protected] or 703-295-6176.

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A case study in the Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment, “Valuing the Multiple Benefits of Blue-Green Infrastructure for a Swedish Case Study: Contrasting the Economic Assessment Tools B£ST and TEEB,” written by Frieder Hamann, Godecke-Tobias Blecken, Ph.D., Richard M. Ashley, Ph.D., and Maria Viklander, Ph.D., uses two tools to monetize the benefits related to amenities, home values, and health.

Read the abstract below or peruse the full findings free in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

In addition to flooding and water quality management, blue-green infrastructure (BGI) provides multiple benefits to humans and ecosystems, including health and biodiversity. Various tools are available for assessing these benefits but few evaluate economic benefits. Two tools that monetize the benefits, the Benefits Estimation Tool and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Netherlands), have been used to estimate value for a case study in Luleå, Sweden. Three options for a newly developed area were assessed in comparison with two different baselines. The main economic benefits of the newly developed area were related to amenities, home values, health, and social cohesion rather than to stormwater. However, as a result of the proposed development, negative economic benefits (i.e., costs) were attributed to carbon sequestration and biodiversity when considering the value of the existing area due to a loss of green spaces and trees. B£ST gave higher negative impacts than TEEB. Direct comparison of each category used in each tool was not possible since these categories and the way in which the monetized values are determined in each case differ. While the overall approach used in both tools is applicable in Sweden, calculations and data used need to be adapted to local circumstances and valuation.

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The abstract is included below, but you can read their findings, which include sampling of large volumes of wastewater, concentration, elution, and quantification free in the ASCE Library.

Abstract

Untreated wastewater samples were collected from the Great Lakes Water Authority Water Resource Recovery Facility in southeast Michigan between April 8 and May 26, 2020. The WRRF is the largest single-site wastewater treatment facility in the United States, and it receives wastewater from its service area via three main interceptors: Detroit River Interceptor, North Interceptor–East Arm, and Oakwood–Northwest–Wayne County Interceptor. A total of 54 untreated wastewater samples were collected (18 per interceptor) at the point of intake into the WRRF. Viruses were isolated from wastewater using electropositive NanoCeram column filters (Argonide, Sanford, Florida). For each sample, an average of 45 L of wastewater was passed through NanoCeram electropositive cartridge filters at a rate of no more than 11.3  L/m. Viruses were eluted and concentrated and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) concentrations were quantified with reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 100% of samples, and measured concentrations were in the range of 104–105 genomic copies/L. Quantification of concentrations of human viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, in wastewater is a critical first step in the development of wastewater-based epidemiology predictive methods. However, accurate prediction involves the incorporation of multiple other measurements, data, and processes, such as the estimation of fate and detention times of viruses in the sewer collection network, estimation of contributing population, incorporation of disease characteristics based on anthropometric data, and others. A viral disease prediction model (Viral PD) that incorporates all these other inputs is currently being developed for COVID-19 in Detroit, Michigan.

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