Industry News Briefs

August 14, 2008 Headlines
DOE to Pursue Zero-Net Energy Commercial Buildings
North Dakota Ranks As Most Cost-Effective State Highway System; New Jersey Stands Last
Legislation Eyes Private Investment in U.S. Passenger Rail System

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DOE to Pursue Zero-Net Energy Commercial Buildings
Department of Energy News Release (08/05/08)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently launched the Zero-Net Energy Commercial Building Initiative with the objective of developing new commercial buildings that produce as much energy as they use by 2025. Energy efficiency technologies and on-site renewable energy generation systems, including solar power and geothermal energy, will help make this possible. DOE has also formed the National Laboratory Collaborative on Building Technologies, which will allow the department and five of its national laboratories to work together on the research, validation, and commercialization priorities that are important to achieving zero-net energy buildings. "DOE's Commercial Building Initiative and the Collaborative are urgently needed to accelerate innovation and market adoption in the field of high performance buildings," says DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency David Rodgers. "Now we are bringing to bear the unprecedented collaboration in scientific resources of five national laboratories to bring about the needed transformation of the built environment, lower our carbon footprint in buildings and accelerate commercial deployment of clean, efficient building technologies."
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North Dakota Ranks As Most Cost-Effective State Highway System; New Jersey Stands Last
Reason Foundation (08/07/08) Hartgen, David T.; Karanam, Ravi K.

The Reason Foundation's "17th Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems" ranks North Dakota's state highway system as the most cost effective in the nation, with Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Kansas following it in the top five. New Jersey, meanwhile, remained in last place. Thirty-five states now say at least 40 percent of their urban interstate highways are congested, compared to 31 states a year earlier, with only Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming reporting no clogged interstates. The worst interstate highway congestion is in California, Minnesota, and North Carolina. Meanwhile, although the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last year drew attention to deficient bridges, Minnesota in fact was No. 5 among states with the least deficient bridges--just 13 percent deficient--while the worst were Rhode Island at 53 percent, New York at 38 percent, and Pennsylvania at 39 percent. Nevada had the smallest percentage of deficient bridges, at 3.9 percent. In terms of fatality rates, Massachusetts had the safest highways for the third straight year, while Montana's were the least safe.
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Legislation Eyes Private Investment in U.S. Passenger Rail System
Reuters (08/06/08) Crawley, John

The Amtrak subsidy bill currently before Congress includes a provision that would direct regulators to see proposals for high speed rail between New York and Washington, D.C., potentially opening up U.S. passenger rail to private investment. A positive response could lead to a pilot program in the Northeast as well as potential options for other rail investment. The plan was put together by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), who said he has met with financial and transportation interests in the U.S. and abroad, and that investors "are watching to see what Congress will do. If we open the door and don't put too many impediments to competition, you could attract significant investment." Among the companies that attended Mica's high-speed rail roundtable or provided promotional materials were Virgin Rail, which is part of a rail service partnership in Britain, and the German high-speed train manufacturer Siemens. According to former World Bank rail adviser Louis Thompson, numerous private rail operators worldwide work with governments that generally coordinate infrastructure and support unprofitable routes that benefit the public. High-speed service has been supported by private investment in Germany, Japan, and France; other companies in the rail field around the world include France's Alstom and Canada's Bombardier.
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Ambitious State Proposals to Improve Intercity Passenger Rail Service
U.S. Department of Transportation (08/05/08)

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters has announced a new grant program for improving intercity passenger rail service and help relieve traffic congestion. A total of 25 proposals from 22 states will compete for the grant funding, which will total $30 million in all. According to Peters, the state proposals are generally designed to improve the reliability of intercity passenger rail, relieve highway congestion, and increase rail capacity. They include such projects as installing advanced signaling systems to increase track speeds, reconfiguring track junctions to enhance operational efficiency, and constructing additional main line track to keep trains moving. Most of them are intended to improve existing passenger rail routes, although a few involve planning activities for the creation of an entirely new service. A 50-50 funding match will be required for each grant awarded. The Bush administration meanwhile is calling for the creation of a federal-state funding partnership to finance intercity passenger rail projects and is requesting $100 million for the initiative as part of the proposed fiscal 2009 budget.
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Giant Retailers Look to Sun for Energy Savings
New York Times (08/11/08) P. A1; Rosenbloom, Stephanie

More and more of America's largest retail chains are coming to see their immense, flat roofs as an untapped resource. In recent months, such retailers as Wal-Mart, Safeway, Kohl's and Whole Foods Market have installed solar panels on the rooftops of their stores to generate electricity on a large scale. One reason they are scrambling is to beat an end-of-the-year deadline to gain tax advantages for such projects. To date, though, most chains have outfitted fewer than 10 percent of their stores. Over the long run, assuming Capitol Hill lawmakers renew a favorable tax provision and more states offer incentives, the various retail companies promise to put panels atop nearly every big store nationwide. Daniel M. Kammen, an energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley, states, "It's very clear that green energy is now front and center in the minds of the business sector. Not only will you see panels on the roofs of your local stores, but I suspect very soon retailers will have stickers in their windows saying, 'This is a green energy store.'" The numbers are eye-popping. For instance, if Wal-Mart eventually covered the roofs of all its Sam's Club and Wal-Mart stores with solar panels, figures from the retailer show that the resulting solar acreage would roughly equal the size of Manhattan. Other chains are looking at additional ways to extend their use of renewable energy by testing such technologies as wind turbines and reflective white roofs, which keep buildings cooler in warmer climates.
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A Formwork Formula: Tips for Success
Structural Engineer (07/08) Schaeffer, Michael

Advances in formwork mold technology from job-built lumber to pre-engineered systems made of various materials have boosted production and safety, improved the finished project, and reduced labor needs. The number of formwork systems available in the U.S. domestic market has more than doubled in the past decade and a half, and gang forming for walls has shifted in the past decade from bolt/pin connections to clamp connection forms with wood or plastic form faces, reducing labor needs substantially. Slab shoring in the United States is still most commonly done with fixed or adjustable wood posts, stringers, and joists, a generations-old method, but there is a new method using engineered lumber and metal posts, allowing for larger post spacing as well as systematic and reusable components. There is some shift toward using smaller tables delivered to the site already assembled with plywood, along with formwork-lifting elevators that mount to the under-construction building's exterior, which cuts down on formwork labor requirements and crane time on the job site. Structural engineers who design a concrete structure must take cost and economy into account, and this means they should look at more efficient means of construction as part of their value engineering process. Thus, it is advantageous for engineers to be aware of the overall cost of the formwork portion of the construction budget, and to stay up to date on new and innovative products in the market. Some more innovations in the market include protection screens that fully enclose the slab edge of a building, as well as self-climbing formwork used on shear walls and cores--although using the latter requires particular consideration of rebar design for anchoring the formwork. Additional considerations include whether the required material is readily available, whether the supplier manufactures or purchases the material, how much of the formwork can be pre-assembled, whether the supplier provides on-site field service for training the formwork crew, the safety of using the system, the firm's experience with the type of project in question, and whether the supplier offers engineering services and can provide project-specific assembly drawings.
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Techniques Minimize Effects of Blasting on Structures, Fish
Hydro Review (07/08) Vol. 27, No. 4, P. 76

Columbia Power managed to minimize the impact from the construction of its 120 Mw Brilliant Expansion project by using rock work pads in conjunction with bubble curtains. Located downstream from the existing Brilliant Dam and its accompanying 145-Mw generating station, the expansion project is situated near the Kootenay River, which is home to endangered white sturgeon. Work on the new powerhouse, power tunnel, intake channel, and access tunnel broke ground in 2003, and entailed blasting. The utility used rock pads and bubble curtains to protect the dam and fish in the river. The pads protected fish from blast zones that exceeded fish protection guidelines issued by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and bubble curtains were used in spots where the rock pads could not be used. Columbia Power plans to employ the same techniques on the planned Waneta Expansion Project.

Normal but Not Ordinary
Civil Engineering (07/08) Vol. 78, No. 7, P. 52; Beck, N. Dillon; Shiosaka, Daniel R.

Arizona's Red Mountain Freeway must cross a local thoroughfare and a canal that transports drinking water to the Phoenix area as part of the Central Arizona Project, and the intersection takes place at a skew. Engineers in the Phoenix office of Stanley Consultants worked out a system combining posttensioned concrete elements cast on-site with precast girders to support a dual concrete bridge design with substructural components that are concurrently normal for both the canal and the freeway. The space for constructing the bridges was restricted by various requirements from state and local agencies, including the Western Area Power Administration's mandate to protect transmission lines bounding the project. Each bridge's design supports a quartet of general-purpose lanes and a single high-occupancy vehicle lane. Specially designed straddle bents were employed to remove skew in the bridge superstructure by acting as a lower bridge that supports an upper bridge. Comprising each straddle bent assembly are six individual rectangular, nonprismatic precast plies placed side by side and spaced 20 inches apart on center and bearing on a drilled shaft cap at each bank. The spans boast reinforced-concrete decks cast in place on steel stay-in-place deck forms supported by 11 lines of prestressed, precast girders spaced about eight feet apart, and skew is absent in all 19 substructure units. The project's abutments utilized about 30,600 square feet of mechanically stabilized earth wall panels of precast concrete situated behind the abutments, which are exposed and resemble half a pier, each supporting a bridge span on only one side. The use of inverted T-shape saddles rather than long, curved steel girders to accommodate the skew resulted in savings of $2 million, which was reinvested in widening the bridge.

Docking Air Ships
Roads & Bridges (07/08) Vol. 46, No. 7, P. 54; Bush, Ted; Bormann, Kent; Turton, Rob

A five-span post-tensioned concrete box girder underpass recently built at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport exemplifies the recent trend toward building bridges that can accommodate airplanes as airports grow. The design team for this design-build project, which was a reconstruction of the airport's Taxiway Sierra, identified three structural goals: construction-related interruptions to airside and landside operations were to be kept to a minimum; the facility should be maintenance free, cost-effective, and aesthetically compatible; and the design would have to avoid potential conflict with future facilities. After considering three superstructure alternatives, the design team chose a cast-in-place, post-tensioned box girder bridge design, which offered aesthetic consistency with an adjacent bridge, reasonable cost of construction, minimal maintenance, and optimal vertical clearance. The design team was able to produce a bridge width that met the taxiway safety requirement for Design Group V airport, with full strength across the entire width so that service and emergency vehicles could be accommodated as well as any aircraft that might find themselves running off-course. Lighting was added according to FAA lighting requirements, with additional conduits in the cross-section for under-deck lighting, future power and communication utilities. The issues and considerations that went into this design demonstrate some of the unique considerations for aircraft bridges as opposed to railroad or highway bridges, and it is clear that early discussions with the owner as well as sufficient consideration to the bridge's type, size, and location can cut down on time and cost and make for a successful project.
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Shedding Light on Curtainwall Systems
Buildings (07/08) Vol. 102, No. 7, P. 112; Kientz, Helmut

Curtainwall systems that are used today feature infill materials made with metal, monolithic or insulating glass, stone veneer panels, louvers, and sometimes operable or fixed windows and vents. In the stick system, mullions, referred to as sticks, are installed between floors vertically and between vertical elements horizontally. Mullions may be manufactured in a shop environment, but installation and glazing is performed at the jobsite. For big or labor-intensive projects, unit panel systems may be a cheaper option to the stick system. Panels can be made, put together, and glazed at the shop before being transported to the jobsite where they are connected to a building structure. In a unit and mullion system, the mullions are installed first, like in a stick system, but the spandrel and glazing are added to the stick system as a whole unit. Column cover and spandrel systems have much in common with unit and mullion systems, but the building frame is accentuated with column covers. In a point loaded structural glazing system, the vertical framing member can be made of stick, cable, or a different custom structure behind the glass, which is reinforced by a system of four-point brackets, and joints are closed up with silicone. There are some concerns regarding curtainwall, such as air infiltration, deflection, non-deflection-related stress, and thermal conductivity loads. The structure must be able to sustain any loads placed on the curtainwall. To minimize fire safety issues, fire safing, and smoke seals should be placed between floors, and tempered knockout panels should be added as well. Regular checks on items, including gaskets, seals, system joints, and the thermal-insulation capacities of vision and insulating panels, should be performed, and perimeter sealants should be replaced every 10 to 15 years.
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