I definitely agree that google alerts are a great way to receive the news you need in any given field - no matter how small the niche. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that they created rss feeds for the service (it was previously email only).

I have found a few other blogs in my discipline now, so it must be high time to update this list!

I used mine to put a feed on my website so anyone visiting will get the most up-to-date stories on the Web about Public Works. If you visit the site, you will see the type of feed you get at the top (although you have to use an additional tool like Yahoo Pipes to get this). Eventually this service can help lead you to other blogs.

I am adding your site to my list too!

Thanks!

Matt Barcus
http://www.CivilEngineeringCentral.com
building teams . engineering careers
jobs :: resumes :: blog :: discussion

My bottom line for the concrete anchoring industry and profession : 1. although AC308 calls up provisions for inspection & verification it doesn’t seem to be well understood or applied, 2. AC308 fails to address creep behaviour under the on-site proof testing provisions.

If via this network you can stimulate debate and get responses to this I would be professionally grateful. I have only received any substantial response from ASCE via the White Paper recently issued and which you also received.

“Once we look beyond the significant personal & commercial tragedy resulting from the tunnel ceiling collapse in the Boston Big Dig in July 2006 it seems to me there is much that all engineers can learn in various areas of the profession, not just those in the concrete & more specialised precast and anchorage fields.
 
Based upon the excellent report issued by the NTSB it is clear that the failure had little to do with the product merits of adhesive anchors as a class of structural solution and even less to do with prequalification or acceptance criteria. If I could distil the key message of the NTSB report down to the key points for future action so that similar circumstances will not recur I suggest the following :
 
1. Civil Engineers must be conversant with creep – material susceptibility and required load environment - and that falls to training institutions for undergraduates and industry bodies offering ongoing professional development. It really shouldn’t be a foreign concept to civil engineers given that we all should have studied that both concrete and timber can be creep susceptible. It is not a new behaviour nor a new technology.
 
2. Product manufacturers “must submit inspection procedures to verify proper usage” as AC308 already calls up. Regarding adhesive anchors & the Big Dig this extends beyond items like void-free injection to include other measures whereby the correct adhesive product can be readily identified even after packaging has been disposed of. Perhaps a unique colour for each product within a given manufacturer’s range – at least to distinguish the creep-rated from the non-creep-rated? And any such procedures must be applied so that without such instructions any product supplied which requires user installation should be considered incomplete. Appropriate proof-load testing would be the best verification (by definition).
 
3. Regarding proof-testing there is an urgent need to develop Code provisions which are relevant to assessing creep on site. Instantaneous and short-term proof-loading (measured in seconds or minutes) is useless as the Boston experience shows. Proof testing has to prove the performance of the behaviour concerned. And with creep this means time is involved. Perhaps the prequalification tests can include key early measurements & limits (at 12hr?, 24hr?, 48hr?) for quick reference to verify performance on site?
 
4. Perhaps most tragically at Boston there was a failure of many in the process to say “STOP” until a satisfactory explanation was found for the irregular observations which started 7 years before the incident. This returns us to engineering competence but also goes to other fundamentals (to understand cause & effect AND to insist upon understanding it) and also the area of ethics – doing what is right. This is also a cultural issue and all individuals and organizations in the profession have a duty to reinforce to those learning and to those under pressure to compromise that where the risks of not knowing outweigh the risks of delaying until we know we either stop progress or bring in the expertise needed beyond our limit of competence. Having limits is not a failure - choosing to work beyond them IS. Clearly the creeping anchors could not progress indefinitely and this was not some self-limiting system as we might see with load redistribution in some structures.
 
There, but for the grace of God, go many of us and there is no pleasure in seeing fellow concrete engineering professionals getting caught up in a preventable tragedy. The best response is not recrimination but a commitment to learn from errors & apply our collective expertise to get it right in future so there is no “next time”.
 
Geoff Fletcher CPEng
Melbourne, Australia”

This is going in the permanent file! Look forward to future posts, I’ll put this in the “blogroll”.

cheers!
Mike

The biggest issue so far hasn’t been the desire or costs — it’s been the bureaucracy of building codes and obtaining permits. Not to mention finding builders to help…although with the new economic pressure, that may change.