Parsons Brinckerhoff

The paper presents the benefits of using underground space to provide the most economic solution for minimizing CSO problems and reducing flooding while supporting the potential to revitalize the economy of the City of Fall River, Massachusetts. The CSO tunnel has been positioned to virtually eliminate the requirements of tunnel lining and ground support. For the efficiency of CSO capture, some of the drop shafts are located in Rhode Island formation or weathered rock. The topography of the City and shallow overburden was used in designing the tunnel profile to convey the flow by gravity, thus eliminating the need for pumping of dry/wet weather flow. In addition, the collection system between the tunnel and the water front has been modified to separate overland storm sewers from the sanitary sewer system to revitalize the town in a cost effective method.

Neste artigo, objetivamos descrever e analisar possibilidades inventivas de instrumentações que transcendem o uso do denominado Instrumental Orff, ainda que reconheçamos e discutamos sua inegável relevância. Com base nos princípios da música elementar e nas concepções de Orff e Keetman, discutimos o arranjo como prática descompartimentada entre música, linguagem e movimento, articulada a uma perspectiva pedagógica contextualizada, crítica e criativa. Assim, traçamos um breve panorama histórico da abordagem, discutimos as bases conceituais do arranjo elementar e propomos inventividades na utilização de instrumentais, incorporando o Instrumental Orff, instrumentos tradicionais, cotidiáfonos, instrumentos pedagógicos, música corporal e recursos digitais. Nosso objetivo é (re)significar a essência orffiana ao mesmo tempo em que contextualizamos suas possibilidades em diálogo com diferentes culturas, práticas e realidades educativas.

Fatigue cracks in steel bridges can lead to catastrophic failure and cause significant risks to public safety. These cracks can grow, propagate, reduce the structure maximum design capacity, and ultimately lead to a sudden failure. Fatigue cracks in steel bridges are primarily induced by the cyclic loading from constant traffic loads over time. Therefore, monitoring fatigue on steel bridges is essential to ensure structural safety. Operational modal analysis (OMA) is a non-destructive testing technique that can be used to monitor fatigue-induced damage through changes in modal parameters. When the fatigue crack grows the stiffness of the beam will reduce. This study implements OMA on a simply supported steel beam with changing stiffness. The natural frequencies and mode shapes of the beam are obtained through OMA, and combined with a model to predict the stress/strains at any point of the structure. The case study shows how maximum stresses and the natural frequencies that are affected by the crack growth are varying due to changes in stiffness. The result demonstrates that by combining OMA with fatigue assessment, the risk of fatigue failure in steel bridges can be significantly reduced.

When performing vibration tests on bridges, engineers face the challenge of extracting the global dynamic properties of these structures from the vibration responses measured at several degrees of freedom. In this paper, the new subspace-based poly-Reference Complex Frequency (SpCF) technique is applied to the vibration measurements of a large span bridge. The advantage of the SpCF with regard to other modal or system identification techniques is that it provides robust estimates for the modal properties, which leads to very clear stabilization diagrams. In order to assess the performance of the new SpCF, its estimates for the modal properties of the aforementioned bridge are compared to those of the poly-reference Least Squares Complex Frequency (pLSCF, also known by its commercial name polymax), which is deemed as a standard technique in experimental and operational modal analysis.

Acoustics practitioners have been aiming to satisfy the requirements of Environmental Impact Assessments for many years. The USA formally established the practice in 1969 and by the mid 1980's many countries had followed their example, including in 1985 the European Union with the introduction of Directive 85/337/EEC 1 .

An ambitious and innovative integrated land use-transport modeling system has been developed in Oregon over the past two decades. This work, completed under the Transportation and Land Use Model Integration Program (TLUMIP), included the development of two generations of models and the data required to build and use them and spawned the development of two others that have continued independently. An outreach program and collaborative development of freight data and forecasts were also included, as well as system testing and applications. A brief description of the motivation behind TLUMIP and the resulting modeling systems are presented. Perhaps more interesting is the story behind the models, describing several major model design, institutional, and methodology issues that were overcome. Using an integrated model in practice also entailed addressing a wider range of analytical requirements and stakeholder expectations about usability, accuracy, and extensibility than typically considered in academic pursuits. The key lessons learned through development and use of the models are discussed, with the hope that they will inform the development of similar large-scale modeling systems.

Temperature and moisture impacts on unoxidized and oxidized asphalts' thermodynamic and rheological properties were studied using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Changes in asphalt property under different degrees of oxidation, temperature, and moisture content were investigated regarding density, isothermal compressibility, bulk modulus, and zero-shear viscosity. MD simulation results show that the density of asphalt before and after oxidation decreases at a similar rate with an increase in temperature. Bulk modulus (inverse of isothermal compressibility) of asphalt before and after oxidation also decreases with an increase in temperature but with different trends. Because of oxidative hardening, oxidized asphalt shows lower isothermal compressibility, but higher bulk modulus and zero-shear viscosity compared with unoxidized asphalt. When moisture is added, such trends become opposite. Specifically, the zero-shear viscosity of the oxidized asphalt becomes lower than that of the unoxidized asphalt above 5% moisture inclusion. This is true in the case of the density of asphalt with moisture as well, but this finding is not significant.

Since the introduction of electrified transit systems in the United States there has been a number of advancements in the field of corrosion control related to light rail transit (LRT) systems. Modern day direct current (dc) powered LRT systems have been designed with a variety of corrosion control features built-in. Most of the research into corrosion control and the mitigation of stray currents known as electrolysis in the early days of electrified transit systems first appeared extensively in papers prepared and presented by personnel of the National Bureau of Standards. This research has led to better protection against corrosion of transit systems and nearby structures throughout the years. Due to the ever increasing number of transit systems being built or upgraded, it’s essential to incorporate the installation, testing and monitoring of corrosion control measures in these transit systems. By integrating these corrosion control features into the design of LRT systems and subsystems, it will help to prevent premature corrosion failures on LRT fixed facilities and other structures. This paper identifies the main causes of corrosion and how corrosion control can be implemented into the design of LRT systems to prevent damage to the transit system and other structures.

The aviation community has faced several accidents and incidents on infrastructures and procedures temporarily modified for the purpose of construction works. The analysis of these events shows that usual means of communication to the air crews are the weak link of the safety chain. To address the key challenge of situational awareness during construction works, the Airport Construction Advisory Council of FAA and Paris–Charles de Gaulle Airport (Paris-CDG) developed and evaluated with the airfield community, from 2011 to 2016, an innovative aviation signage. Parallel and complementary studies in human factors led to the definition of specifications for a temporary information signage, also called orange construction sign. Paris-CDG focused on the development of specific messages for each one of the major hazards that could require an increased situational awareness of the air crews during taxiing and takeoff. The results of the evaluation conducted by FAA were published in September 2015. The purpose of this paper is to present the parallel study performed by the author at Paris-CDG with the coalition of the airside operations stakeholders. Both research projects are convergent and confirm the relevance of the orange sign concept for increasing the situational awareness and preventing safety events during airfield construction.