Drexel University, Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering

Green Architecture Benefits the Environment AND Productivity

From the January 16, 2006 issue of the Boston Globe

"A 2003 study of ''green" architecture and design by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the state development agency for renewable energy, found that employers could increase workforce productivity by 7.1 percent per year by controlling indoor temperatures, increasing sunlight, and improving indoor air quality."

The article goes on the cite improvements in terms of lower absenteeism, and increase in productivity associated with improving indoor air quality, lighting, heating and air conditioning. Hence attention to these details can potentially yield economic benefits.

Technorati Tags: architectural engineering, green buildings

Placing shredded tires on top of -- rather than in -- landfills can save money and benefit the environment, researchers from the University of Illinois say.

Timothy Stark, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Krishna Reddy, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago, recently evaluated the use of shredded tires as a drainage material in waste-containment systems. Shredding tires into chips roughly 4 inches by 6 inches, they report, offers a simple and cost-effective way of providing drainage for modern landfills, remediating older landfills, and disposing of mountains of scrap tires. For the rest of the story

Technorati Tags: solid waste, landfills, ultrasonics

Effects of uneven moisture distribution on the strength of and wave velocity in concrete

Professor emeritus Sandor Popovics has published this paper in the journal Ultrasonics. An abstract is below:

Earlier findings showed that the effects of moisture (liquid or free water) in hardened concrete on its behavior, especially the lesser known effects ofuneven moisture distribution, can (a) be significant, and (b) vary from property to property. This distribution, for instance whether or not the surface layer is drier than the overall average moisture content, can be characterized by the difference between the velocity of the longitudinal wave (pulse velocity) measured in the standard through-thickness manner, and the velocity of the longitudinal wave propagating on the concrete surface. The summary of earlier findings on the effects of moisture distribution is followed by a recent investigation on pulse velocity in the special case, occurring frequently in practice, when the distribution is uneven because the liquid is concentrated in cracks in the concrete. You can find the abstract and bibliographic information here.

Technorati Tags: concrete, ultrasonics

ASCE References on Hurricanes

ASCE has put together a nice web page with a list of papers published in their journals and proceedings relevant to hurricanes and evacuations. This would be useful for senior seminar papers and possibly to generate ideas for senior design. The actual papers can be downloaded as pdfs from this page.

Technorati Tags: ASCE, bibliographies, hurricane

Will Large Hurricanes Become More Common?

It is reported that since 1990, there has been an increase in intensity in large hurricanes. Although the cause of this, and the relationship to global warming remain controversial, the potential truth of this assertion over the period of design that is usually used for civil, architectural and environmental projects means that designers should take cognizance of the potential in project risk assessments. This would make an interesting topic for senior seminar papers. The link to the primary article in Science Magazine is here.

Technorati Tags: global warming, hurricane