Five civil engineering projects have been selected as finalists in the competition for the 2008 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award (OCEA award). The OCEA jury convened at ASCE’s headquarters, in Reston, Virginia, on January 14. During its meeting the jury selected the 2008 outstanding civil engineering achievement, and the Board of Direction’s Executive Committee approved the choice on January 16. However, the winner will not be announced until the Outstanding Projects and Leaders (OPAL) gala, which will be held on April 30 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport. The five projects chosen are the Tacoma Narrows Bridge; the Pasadena City Hall Seismic Upgrade and Rehabilitation Project; the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project; the Arsenic Crisis in the Indian Subcontinent: Sustainable Engineering Solution, West Bengal, India; and the Mission Valley East Light-Rail Transit Project.
The members of the OCEA jury were Thomas L. Jackson, P.E., D.WRE, f.ASCE, a former ASCE president and the jury chair; W.F. Marcuson III, Ph.D., P.E., Hon.M.ASCE, the Society’s immediate past president; Ronald E. Smith, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, a former president of ASCE’s Geo-Institute; Cecil Lue-Hing, D.Sc., P.E., BCEE, Hon.M.ASCE, the president of Cecil Lue-Hing & Associates, Inc., of Burr Ridge, Illinois; Larry Klein, a producer for WGBH in Boston; Stephanie Johnston, the editor in chief of the magazine Public Works; Rob Carson, a special projects reporter for the News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington; and Anne Elizabeth Powell, the editor in chief of Civil Engineering and ASCE News and the nonvoting jury secretary.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the longest suspension span built in the United States in four decades, officially opened to traffic in July 2007. The structure—one of the first major suspension bridges in North America to be delivered under the design/build contracting model—crosses the Tacoma Narrows, in Washington State, to link Tacoma and Gig Harbor. It was designed and built for the Washington State Department of Transportation by Tacoma Narrows Constructors (TNC), a joint venture of Bechtel Infrastructure Corporation, of San Francisco, and Kiewit Pacific Company, of Omaha, Nebraska. TNC retained Parsons/HNTB, a joint venture of Parsons Transportation Group and HNTB. Work on the $615-million lump-sum turnkey contract began late in 2002. By that time 90,000 cars a day were crossing the existing bridge, which was built in 1950 and designed to handle 60,000 cars per day.
The new bridge is adjacent to the existing one, which replaced a span that collapsed in spectacular fashion in 1940 just a few months after it opened. The event was captured on film and changed the way suspension bridges are designed.
The deck of the new bridge takes the form of a steel truss 5,400 ft (1,646 m) long, the main span being 2,802 ft (854 m) from tower to tower.
Major construction work included installing caissons for two 509 ft (155 m) tall towers, building the towers, spinning cables, and assembling the deck. During the final phase, 46 deck sections—each weighing an average of 459 tons (416.4 metric tons)—were lifted and attached to suspension cables.
Among the challenges that the project team faced were the proximity of the new bridge to the existing crossing; the high winds, strong currents, and tidal changes typical of the Tacoma Narrows; the importance of preserving the pristine environment of the area; and the need to work around the remains of the 1940 crossing, now resting at the bottom of the waterway.
The Pasadena City Hall Seismic Upgrade and Rehabilitation Project, the largest capital undertaking in city history, was initiated in 2005 by the City of Pasadena, California, to repair earlier earthquake damage and seismically strengthen the city’s most important civic icon, which was constructed in 1927 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Components of this $117-million undertaking included a comprehensive program of state-of-the-art structural seismic upgrades; interior renovation; the application of new building technology; the replacement of outdated building systems; the use of new fire safety systems; upgrades in keeping with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); and the restoration of historically important facets of the structure’s interior and exterior, along with landscaped areas.
The project’s primary focus was to seismically strengthen and protect the 80-year-old building during an earthquake through a system of structural upgrades, including the installation of 240 doubly concave friction pendulum base isolators beneath the building, new shear walls, and a surrounding moat to accommodate building movement during earthquakes.
The interior rehabilitation involved new mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire safety systems; technology upgrades; new and upgraded elevators; tactile sign-age; audible alarms; and ADA-compliant ramps. Interior renovations of nonhistoric spaces have provided new offices, restrooms, conference areas, floor coverings, lighting, and furnishings. The areas of historical importance, including council chambers, offices, and ceilings, were restored in accordance with preservation standards.
Exterior restoration refurbished original cast stone building elements, facade plaster, the courtyard fountain, copper roof cladding on the lanterns of the main dome and stair towers, exterior lighting, and landscaping. The project was submitted for silver certification to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.
The Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project is revitalizing a crossing that has impeded regional travel for decades. With new gossamer twin spans supported by gracefully curving V piers, the new bridge has been carrying traffic since 2006, and the second span is to open in the middle of this year. The structure, which crosses the Potomac River just south of Washington, D.C., linking Maryland and Virginia, has already improved traffic flow by providing shoulders for vehicle breakdowns and requiring fewer openings of its drawspans. Under construction since late 2000, the $2.47-billion program has remained on schedule and on budget.
The project involved much more than replacing a bridge: it rebuilt almost 12 percent of the Capital Beltway—the ring road around Washington, D.C.—and reconstructed four interchanges in its 7.5 mi (12 km) corridor.
A high-tech marvel, the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge features eight massive bascule leaves, each with a deck encompassing at least 11,800 sq ft (1,096 m²). The most striking innovations include employing movable falsework for the bascule piers; using carbon dioxide to neutralize concrete wash water and then reusing the water to promote the settlement of dust; and adapting an epoxy gel method to seal posttensioning ducts. Future projects will no doubt use the specifications for the “contained bubble curtain” developed as part of this project to protect fish from the effects of pile driving. Using the old bridge as a trestle for the Capital Beltway’s inner loop saved 6 acres (2.4 ha) of dredging, preserving fragile underwater vegetation. Moreover, the project’s community and media outreach efforts have set new standards.
Dividing the superstructure bid package into thirds, along with value engineering and the prequalification of contractors, saved $362 million. Reducing delays from gridlock will save commuters countless hours, speed truck commerce valued at more than $60 billion annually, and spur local economic growth.
The Arsenic Crisis in the Indian Subcontinent: Sustainable Engineering Solution, West Bengal, India, deals with the problem of naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water drawn from underground sources, which is the cause of arsenic poisoning afflicting nearly 100 million people in Bangladesh and West Bengal, a neighboring Indian state. During the past 10 years 175 wellhead community-based arsenic removal units (arus) have been installed and are in operation in remote villages in this region. More than 150,000 villagers are drinking and using potable water from these arus, which are robust and easy to operate. Equally important, the arsenic removed from groundwater takes the form of a solid and does not pose any short- and long-term threat to the environment. The key attributes of the arus are as follows:
- The units are designed in such a way that no chemical addition, pH adjustment, or electricity is needed. The operation of the units is compatible with the cultural traditions of the region, and a robust adsorbent from an indigenous source is used in every aru.
- Only indigenous durable materials are used in constructing the arus. Many such units have been providing safe water for well over five years.
- Each unit is financed, maintained, and monitored by a villagers’ committee, and half of the committee members are women. The operation is self-sustaining and does not require outside assistance. Moreover, the arus have created employment opportunities for villagers.
The project is an outgrowth of a long partnership between Lehigh University and the Bengal Engineering and Science University and is partially financed by the organization Water For People, which is based in Denver.
The Mission Valley East Light-Rail Transit Project opened to the public on July 10, 2005. It created the Green Line by closing a critical 5.9 mi (9.5 km) gap between the Blue and Orange lines in the trolley system. First envisioned by the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) more than 25 years ago, the $506-million project gives San Diegans increased mobility within the busy Interstate 8 corridor.
The salient features of the project—undertaken by the MTS and the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG)—include a tunnel section constructed utilizing the new Austrian tunneling method applied to soft ground; eight bridges totaling more than 2 mi (3.2 km) in length; and four stations, including an underground station at the San Diego State University campus.
In addition to the eight bridges, the new guideway alignment required significant retaining walls, a U section, and a 1 mi (1.6 km) long triple-cell box culvert. Because of space limitations, much of the at-grade section encroaches on steep slopes above I-8 with cut walls above the track bed and fill walls below it. Altogether, more than 4 mi (6.4 km) of various types of retaining walls were required.
With its state-of-the-art low-floor trolleys, the Mission Valley project is on target to attract 11,000 boardings per day by the year 2015. With more than 2.5 million new riders expected in the metropolitan area by the year 2015, the project will be a boon to transportation within the busy I-8 corridor.
The Civil Engineering Forum for Innovation (CEFI) has announced the recipients of the 2008 Charles Pankow Award for Innovation and the 2008 Henry L. Michel Award for Industry Advancement of Research. Each winner was selected by a jury comprising civil engineering leaders from industry, academia, and government. The Pankow jury met in late November to select the winner, and the winner of the Michel award was selected in early December. Both selections have been approved by CEFI’s Board of Directors. The winners will receive their awards at the 2008 Outstanding Projects and Leaders (OPAL) gala, which will be held on April 30 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport.
The Pankow award was established by CEFI’s predecessor, the Civil Engineering Research Foundation (CERF), to recognize organizations working collaboratively to aid the design and construction industry by converting innovative ideas into practice. The award is named for Charles J. Pankow, CERF’s founder and an innovator and leader in civil engineering for five decades. This year’s winner is the Lightweight Modular Ceramic Composite Firewall System, developed by a team comprising Composite Support & Solutions, Inc., of San Pedro, California; Southern California Edison, a utility firm headquartered in Rosemead, California; San Diego State University; and the University of Southern California’s Center for Composite Materials. The fire wall system was developed to protect utility transformers from catastrophic fires.
A large portion of transformers in the United States are more than 35 years old, and insurance companies project that these aging transformers will soon begin to diminish the efficiency of the energy transmission infrastructure. Major transformers are situated in banks of four or more, and each transformer contains up to 14,000 gal (53 m³) of highly refined mineral oil. Transformer fires can quickly escalate, significantly increasing the extent and severity of power interruptions. Replacing the older transformers is prohibitively expensive, as each costs approximately $4 million to $6 million. Moreover, the preparation can take up to two years. A more cost-effective solution, the team reasoned, would be to construct a fire wall around each transformer, thereby isolating the damage from a catastrophic failure. Traditional fire walls could not be installed because there is not enough space between the transformers. Therefore, the team developed an innovative design/build solution to protect these costly and vulnerable energy assets.
The paucity of space inspired the lightweight modular system. The fire wall system takes the form of a 35 by 35 ft (11 by 11 m) wall made up of 28 panels assembled in four vertical sections. The five columns that hold these sections are prefabricated steel beams, which are protected from fire with durable covers that are bolted on, thereby facilitating assembly and disassembly. The team determined that chemically bonded ceramics (CBCs) would meet the project’s requirements. CBCs were used as dental cements in the 19th century, a use that demonstrated their formidable longevity and durability. The team used CBCs as a resin and created a composite material by combining the resin with glass and carbon fibers. The resulting composite material exhibited a mechanical toughness and a resistance to hydrocarbon fires that could not be obtained with the CBC resin alone.
The Henry L. Michel Award for Industry Advancement of Research, according to the award’s criteria, “recognizes and acknowledges leaders of the design and construction industry whose dedication and aggressive vision for the industry have provided the cornerstones for improving the quality of people’s lives around the world through research in the design and construction industry.” It is named in honor of Henry L. Michel, a former chairman of CERF’s Board of Directors. This year’s winner is Carl A. Strock, P.E., M.ASCE, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and a former commander and chief of engineers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Strock was chosen for his work with the Corps in promoting engineering innovations in research and technology.
The award descriptions and the 2008 recipients, along with a list of past recipients, are available at CEFI’s newly redesigned Web site, www.asce.org/cefi. A searchable database of some of the Pankow entries also is available.
The members of the Pankow jury were J. Richard Capka, P.E., M.ASCE, then the administrator of the Federal Highway Administration; Linda Ann Figg, a.M.ASCE, the president of the Figg Engineering Group, of Tallahassee, Florida; Thomas L. Jackson, P.E., D.WRE, F.ASCE, a past president of ASCE, a consulting transportation engineer, and a former vice president and chief engineer of D