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ON THE COVER: The design of the National Stadium in Beijing—constructed for the XXIX Olympiad, which begins this month—draws on such diverse inspirations as rock formations and Chinese pottery. But its elegant, sculptural crisscross pattern evokes nothing so much as a bird’s nest, leading many to refer to it by that name.
(Photograph © Yang Liu/Corbis.)
Features
By Jeff L. Brown
As this summer’s Olympic Games begin, the eyes of the world are on Beijing’s new National Stadium. The building—popularly known as the Bird’s Nest—was designed to appear chaotic, but an inside look reveals an intricately complex structure.
By Michael T. McNerney, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
Using a new and more accurate method for predicting the remaining service life of airfield pavements, a civil engineer was able to assist Denver International Airport in developing a rational and cost-effective pavement slab replacement program.
By Matt S. Turney, P.E.
Relying to an increasing extent on recycled water to help meet demand, Denver Water is expanding its distribution system for such water. As part of a recently completed project, Denver Water added a reservoir, a major pump station, and 6.5 mi (10.5 km) of new transmission mains. The design and construction of conduit 307, a 4 mi (6.4 km) long segment connecting the reservoir and the pump station, entailed many challenges related to heavy traffic, confined working spaces, and public relations.
By Ahmad Khashan, P.E., Robert Gale, P.E., P.Eng., Paul Hopkins, and Greg Orsolini, P.E.
A design/build team relied on a skillful launching method—one that had never before been tried on such a scale in North America—to erect a curved steel girder bridge high above a river and the floor of a steep and treacherous canyon in British Columbia.
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