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再保险searchers in Northern Ireland report promising results from a demonstration project that used rods made with basalt fibers to reinforce a 22-meter-long concrete-deck section of a $1.5-million replacement bridge in County Fermanagh. The mineral material, which resists corrosion and has twice the tensile strength of steel, is not yet accredited for structural use in the U.K. In addition to testing the basalt-fiber-reinforced polymer (BFRP), the project is a demonstration of compressive membrane analysis in deck design, says Susan Taylor, a senior structural-engineering lecturer at Queen’s University, Belfast, which secured a $160,000 grant from the U.K. Dept. for Transport for the
China continued its investment in Africa’s infrastructure—and in South Africa’s deep need for cement—when a Chinese cement maker formed a partnership to build a plant with two South African companies. Jidong Development Group, the largest cement producer in northern China, has signed a partnership with South Africa’s leading black-women-owned company, Women Investment Portfolio Holdings Limited (WIPHOLD), and with limestone mining firm Continental Cement. The deal is for construction of a new $218-million cement plant in Limpopo, the northernmost province of South Africa. The venture for the 2,500-tons-a-day cement facility also involves the China-Africa Development Fund (CAF Fund), a leading Chinese
An American architecture professor at a university in the Middle East is developing an energy-saving way to make bricks using bacteria known for its ability to solidify sand.
Already scrambling for highway funding, state departments of transportation and road contractors now are stymied by a nationwide shortage of pavement-marking paint. Photo: WSDOT Highway contractors are coming up short because of kinks in the road-paint supply chain, thanks to recession and a critical chemical shortage. The source of the shortfall is a mixture of economics, chemistry, production disruptions and international trade, and the result will likely be rationed paint and higher prices through most of the summer—and perhaps beyond. Brian Deery, senior director of the Highway & Transportation Division at the Associated General Contractors of America, says DOTs may
At the site of a new $8.5-million, three-story dormitory at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Okla., the Versa-Floor HR floor system is getting its first real-world application. The prefabricated steel deck is joined and fitted with channels on the ground. Then, the 30 x 30-ft steel panels are lifted into place by a crane. Once connections are made to the structural columns, it’s almost ready for the concrete slab to be poured. “That’s the genius of the system,” says Aaron Ford, project manager on the dormitory project and associate principal with structural engineering firm L.A. Feuss Partners, Dallas. “We build
结构工程师将是第一个use steel fibers as structural reinforcing in the lateral-force-resisting system of a concrete-framed high-rise in a seismic zone. The application, designed to reduce reinforcing-steel congestion in shear-wall link beams and, perhaps, in shear walls themselves, is based on recent successful performance tests of SFRC link beams at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Photo: Bekaert Corp. Specimen Steel-fiber reinforcing can eliminate 40% of rebar in link beams in seismic frames. Image: Cary Kopczynski & Co. It also allows diagonal rebar to be smaller and more bendable, so it can exit
The warning shot came in a federal court in Louisiana, and it may signal the beginning of the end of one more costly aspect of the homebuilding boom of 2004-2007. Federal Judge Eldon Fallon in New Orleans ordered Taishan Gypsum Co. Ltd. to pay seven Virginia families a total of $2.6 million to remediate defective Chinese-made drywall in their homes. The case is the first of several class-action lawsuits filed against manufacturers of material that has proven to be a veritable nightmare—and source of odors—for thousands of home-owners. + Image Source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Photo: AP/Wideworld Consumer Product
包含气房屋和其他建筑物的所有者nese drywall now have a clear directive from the federal government: Tear out "all possible problem drywall" and replace it, the U.S. Consumer Product Commission and Dept. of Housing and Urban Development advised on April 2. Photo: CPSC Homeowners should replace Chinese drywall (slightly gray in color) with new wallboard (white in color), federal agencies say. In addition, owners should replace all electrical systems, gas piping, sprinkler systems, smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms, whose metal components corrode under high levels of hydrogen sulfide. Who will pay for the work remains unclear, but
Four state-owned, multinational Chinese construction companies have been short-listed for a tender to construct an $80-million major cement factory in Ethiopia, at a time when China’s dominance in Africa’s construction industry is growing. The four—Sinoma International, CDI-Chengdu Cement Research Institute, Hefei Cement Research Institute and Northern Heavy Industries—now await a technical and financial evaluation of their engineering, procurement and construction tender documents for the construction of the Habesha Cement factory, which has a projected capacity of 1.2 million tones of cement per year. India’s Walchandnagar, synonymous with sugar production in Ethiopia, is the only other company that was prequalified for
The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but the battle in the court of public opinion was joined in full force on Feb. 18, 10 days after a U.S. District Court unsealed a three-year-old whistleblower claim against a major manufacturer of PVC pipe for utilities. Related Links: PVC Pipe Firm�s False-Claims Suit Unsealed by District Court The claim alleges the company sold to municipal water districts substandard pipe that did not meet industry certifications stamped upon it, from 1997 to 2005, and that the pipe may be prone to breakage and premature failure. Attorneys for JM Eagle, Los Angeles, the