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Volume 15, Number 3 |
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Readers' notesArtifacts received
"MIT Benchmark
A-6 1948 is coming back to Cambridge after a 53-year Maine vacation!"
writes newsletter correspondent Harold Nelson. Having learned that the
Maine Dept. of Transportation would widen US Rt. 1 in Machias next spring,
he arranged for the disc to be carefully removed instead of being destroyed,
then polished it to a bright metallic sheen and mailed it to the Newsletter
office. (If you graduated in the 40 years since compulsory surveying classes
was dropped from the curriculum, an older benchmark is a solid brass disc
about 3-1/2 in. in diameter imprinted with the date and altitude.) Hearing that
this artifact was now holding down papers in the windy Newsletter office,
Phil Simmons '51 "immediately dug out my diary for 1948, and sure enough
an entry on Monday, August 30th reads, 'After dinner four of us went into
Machias to put in two benchmarks. Another fellow and I put one in the
bridge that crosses the Machias River.' I do not know why I didn't identify
the other fellow as I surely knew his name, and I assume that the other
benchmark had to have been located somewhere in the near vicinity."
Responses to WTC structural engineering articles
"In order to
avoid events like September 11 disaster, the least intrusive precaution
for the airline industry and their clients is to implement a system in
which control automatically switches from the human pilots to auto-pilot
when continent- and/or ocean-crossing airplanes leave their approved trajectories,"
suggests Senol Utku '59 (SM) & '60 (ScD), in a long letter responding
to the structural engineering articles about the collapse of the World
Trade Center towers. "I wish MIT would pave the way to vigorously show
that modern technologies, widely used in the military, can help people
live their normal lives without their human rights being violated." Following
stints at MIT and IBM (1957-62), Utku taught at the Middle East Technical
University and Istanbul Technical University (1962-65), worked as a researcher
at JPL (1965-70), and has been a faculty member at Duke (1965-2001). "I
will be retiring from Duke at the end of this term. In the future, assuming
my health permits and people are interested, I will continue to disseminate
the ideas in my book, Theory of Adaptive Structures, Incorporating Intelligence
into Engineered Products (CRC Press, 1998)." "I find it very
difficult to understand that there seems to be confusion over the failure
of these structures," begins Burton Kahn '55, PE, citing data from the
last CEE newsletter, Technology Review, and programs on the History Channel
regarding the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building. "The information
states that the columns were 1-hour fire rated, and applause for them
because, as you stated, one tower lasted 1 hr 42 min before complete collapse
and the other stood for 56 min. The 1997 Uniform Building Code states
that a building over 12 stories high must be a Type I Fire resistant structure.
The structural frame for a Type 1 is to be 3-hour rated. The 1991 code
is the same. "I do not have
the code for 1969 (approximate year the building was built) but I am sure
it was not any different. In 1961, I worked as the Office Engineer/Superintendent
on two high-rise structures (18 and 21 stories) in Hartford, CT. We used
both a foam insulation and plaster to fireproof the columns. I am sure
that the requirements in New York City are as stringent as they are in
a small community. If the columns were only rated for 1 hour as Technology
Review stated, then somebody goofed. ...Had the towers columns been fire
rated for 3 hours, we might still have these buildings." Kahn criticizes
the WTC design with long beams to provide large open spaces for tenants.
"Long beams with small moments of inertia tend to deflect. This deflection
causes a horizontal load on the columns. The columns tend to move in.
This situation occurred in Hartford at the first hockey arena and at Kelly
Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. ...On short spans or low deflection
beams the amount of change is very small. These long spans are rigid."
He refers to the builders of the railroads as "the great engineers. Their
designs were tested every day. Most of our designs are never tested and
when they are, we use an excuse that it was an act of God or a terrorist
attack which we could not have designed for. Flooding is usually used
as an act of God excuse for poor engineering. "Your article
states, 'Can we design buildings to resist collapse?' The answer is YES.
Just follow the codes and the proper engineering. If it cost too much,
then don't build it or else change the budget." "A curious explanation was circulating among the news media here," writes Warren Delano '44, '50, '52 from Saġ Paulo, Brazil, "accounting in part for the apparent ease with which the towers collapsed. It was said that on the top floors, weights of 600 tons on rollers or elastic bearing plates had been placed at the time of construction to reduce the sway of the buildings, and that these had hastened the collapse. Perhaps the folks in Structural Engineering would like to know about this latest foray of journalists into the subject."
General
Construction is busily underway for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, and Charis Gantes '89 (SM) & '91 (PhD), assistant professor of structural engineering at the National Technical Univ. Of Athens, is involved in four projects. "Three of them are at a preliminary design stage. The Main Press Center (MPC) is a 12-story composite steel and concrete three-building complex near the (already existing) Olympic Stadium. Due to the intense seismicity of Athens and the sensitivity of media equipment to vibrations, there are some particularly strict stiffness requirements, even though the aspect ratio of one of the buildings is not ideal in that respect. The Panthesalikon Stadium will be in the city of Volos and will be used for preliminary soccer games. I am involved with the steel parts, namely the roofing of the spectator seats and the lighting pylons. The Panpeloponisiakon Stadium will be in the city of Patra and will also be used for preliminary soccer games. I am again involved with the steel parts, namely the roofing of the spectator seats.
"The fourth
project is at a final design stage and it is indirectly related to the
Games. It is a 250-m-tall guyed tower used by the Greek Navy. The anchor
points of several of its guys interfere with the construction of the rowing
facilities for the Games, so a modification is necessary, for which we
performed the structural design. "It is a very
exciting and busy period for civil engineering in Greece. Our students
at the National Technical University of Athens find jobs well before graduating.
Let's see how long it will last." Abby Popp '02 took the fall semester off to work in Alaska for the Kenai Watershed Forum "doing environmental education and water quality assessment projects, wading through the snow and avoiding the moose. The coldest temperature so far: -30° F. There are plenty of bald eagles, moose, coyotes, mountains, and snow. I am skiing every day and not suffering too much from the only 5 hours a day of sunlight." Lecture notes taken by the late Prof. Albert Dietz for Nov. 30, 1930 in Prof. Ross Tucker's 17.31 Building Construction deal with deadlines. "Meeting the time limit for an excavation job is very important and must be done systematically to be accomplished in the minimum time. The first task is to get the underpinning done so it will not hold up the rest of the project. One way to take advantage of conditions in the underpinning end is to use expert shorers and pay them enough to get good men. They are mostly Swedes and Irish, so if a good gang of Swedish men is put on one side with the foreman a Swede, and the same done on the other side with the Irish, and each made to feel that the other side is getting ahead, there will be some real speed shown on both sides. If the one finished first is promised the major part of the sheet piling, another incentive to fast work is supplied. It will then only be necessary to keep them from getting into a riot." The American Water Works Association
recently published the fourth edition of Plain Talk About Drinking Water,
by James Symons '55 (SM) & '57 (ScD) (old Course 11, Sanitary Engineering).
"This book, written in factual but nontechnical question-and-answer format,
has sold nearly 110,000 copies since it was first published in 1992,"
notes Symons, adding that the current edition has been updated and expanded
to cover 231 questions with answers. It is available by calling 1-800-926-7337
and asking for catalog number 20244 or checking his website at http://alum.mit.edu/www/dr.water Two new books
by Bill Jobin '59 (SM) & '61 (ScD) cover important environmental aspects
of rivers, dams, irrigation systems and coastal waters and emphasize the
other effects of construction besides the eventual production of a large
structure. According to the press release from CRC Press, Sustainable
Management of Dams and Waters encourages engineers and planners working
on water projects to also consider the dimensions of aquatic biology and
ecology. The text connects aspects of history, geography, biology, sociology,
economics, and politics in planning how to manage water resources. Stepping
beyond the traditional engineering aspects of water project construction,
the book focuses on populations of people, animals and vegetation dependent
on the water resources. In a CEE newsletter
interview six years ago, Jobin discussed how new dams and canals not only
brought life-giving water to African deserts, but also inflicted new miseries
such as malaria, bilharzia, and river blindness. Even AIDS could be considered
a waterborne disease since the thousands of unattached men building dams
in remote regions attract flocks of prostitutes, and the workers eventually
spread HIV to previously uninfected regions when they return home. Dams
and Disease: Ecological design and health impacts of large dams, canals
and irrigation systems, published by E&FN Spon, considers 35 case studies
from 25 countries and portrays the influence of politicians, biologists,
engineers, computer modelers and physicians on the spectacular successes
and failures of the builders of canals and dams. Drawing on this experience,
Jobin outlines methods for assessing, predicting and preventing major
water-associated diseases around large water projects in the tropics. Mystery pictures
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Does anyone recognize what absorbed this diligent student's attention about 15 or 20 years ago? photo credit: Photo supplied by Scott Campbell |
"Looking carefully
with my 70-year-old eyes, I could identify the radiant face of Prof. Charles
Head Norris, one of my most inspiring mentors and my advisor at the Institute,"
reports Senol Utku '59 (SM), '60 (ScD). "This summer, I received from
McGraw-Hill Company two copies of the Chinese translation of the fourth
edition of the book that Profs. Wilbur and Norris first published in 1948.
I am proudly displaying the first few pages of the translation on the
door of my office at Duke Univ."
Former CEE Prof.
Hank Paynter describes how he and Warren Delano were undergrads together
in CE right after Pearl Harbor. "After WW II, Warren was my student. Then
we had a long professional collaboration together at Charles A Maguire
Assoc., an architectural/engineering consulting firm where Warren was
an employee and I was a consultant. This collaboration became especially
close and fruitful in connection with the Inner Belt Studies where we
invented two new methods for the requisite traffic generation and assignment
modelling. O/D Generation was based on SA Stouffer's Law of Intervening
Opportunities as well as the more conventional gravity models. But traffic
assignment onto the proposed Inner Belt was based on a novel Time Saving/Rank
Order [TISRO] model. Warren went on to promote these more efficient techniques
widely." Learning that Delano now lives in Brazil, Paynter adds, "After
a recent web search, I had wondered why these methods were being used
in Brazil, and now I know !"
On the left
in the group picture of Prof. John Wilbur with a bridge model is research
administrative officer Marvin Pickett, says Saul Namyet '40 (old Course
17, Building Construction & Engineering). A professor here from 1955 to
1960, Namyet taught structures, helped Prof. Charlie Miller with surveying,
and studied the effects of atomic weapons on buildings.
More details come from Warren Delano, who seems to have been the only lucid person following the unveiling of the snakes. "At this same affair, Prof. Wilbur was presented with this bridge to help in future lectures on 'How Not to Design a Bridge,' part of the course we had just completed that semester on general aspects of structural engineering, dealing with the esthetics of design....The shirt with its back to us appears to be that of Gerard Galletly, an ScD candidate from England, whom I had been assisting in research on shear walls, including programming for Whirlwind II, with the magnificent RAM capacity of 304 programmed in assembler language. Harl Aldrich, who took the photos, had been my instructor in soil mechanics."
Administrator
and violinist Sara Goplin of the Center for Transportation Studies joined
a mixture of freelance musicians and members of the MIT Symphony and Boston
Conservatory for a concert in January at Kresge Auditorium.
From Feb. 8
to March 6, staff member Carolyn Jundzilo Comer will display her luminous
paintings at the Gallery at Grosvenor Park, Salem, MA. A sampling of recent
works are exhibited on her website: http://web.MIT.edu/jundzilo/www/
Honoring those who had their children at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, the hospital's 2002 calendar features happy family groups including a colorful photo of Prof. Harry Hemond and his wife, Carol Thomson, with their three tall sons, for April.
Joining the
Foot Soldiers Team, Jim Diggins '95 (SM) will run the 2002 Boston Marathon
in April to raise money for the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans.
"As a veteran and former officer of the US Army, the Army Reserve and
the Mass. National Guard, I gained tremendous respect for the sacrifices
that so many Americans have given in the Armed forces. Now that I have
left the active military, I am eager to maintain my affiliation by supporting
and raising money for a veteran organization," he writes in his pledge
form.
Grad student
Nicole Gasparini reports that she and two other Parsons Lab affiliates,
Jenny Jay '91, '93, '99 & post-doc, and grad student Kristen Jellison,
will also run the Boston Marathon as a fund-raiser. "Jenny and I are running
for the Home for Little Wanderers, and Kristen is running for the Muscular
Dystrophy Association (MDA). Part of our commitment as charity runners
requires us each to raise $2,500. The CEE Holiday Party in December was
a great setting for us to hold a silent auction benefiting our charities,
with everyone in a festive and giving spirit. Jenny and I collected over
$1,500 for the Home, and Kristen collected over $700 for the MDA. Local
businesses donated most of our auction prizes. But the best prizes came
as a surprise to us that evening. Carolyn Jundzilo-Comer and Deena Salzman,
CEE staff and amazing artists, both donated a piece of artwork. Many bidding
wars ensued, and some items went for more than twice their actual value.
We are lucky to work in such a generous community.
"Just getting
ready to run the marathon has been a huge task. The added pressure of
fundraising, in addition to the stress of being a grad student or post-doc,
has been difficult. The generosity we have experienced has made the fundraising
task much more rewarding and easier than I had anticipated.
"The Home for
Little Wanderers supports at-risk and abused children in the New England
Area. Every year they serve over 11,000 children, teens, and families
through residential programs
and schools, plus family support and counseling. The Muscular Dystrophy
Association is the world's largest non governmental sponsor of research
seeking the causes of, and effective treatments for, neuromuscular diseases.
In addition, MDA provides comprehensive medical and social services to
tens of thousands of people with neuromuscular diseases, as well as their
families.
"We are grateful
for the overwhelming support we have received from Course 1, through all
aspects of the auction and fundraising. We invite everyone to cheer for
us on April 15th. This experience is a big challenge, but then again so
is MIT."
With plenty of time for sailing now that he's retired, Robert and Chesley Logcher are sending a series of e-mails from their ports of call in the Caribbean. The latest installment covered their peregrinations around Nassau and many small islands and bays, including "Pig Beach on Big Majors Spot, an island by Staniel Cay. Pig Beach is named for a couple of hogs that are left to roam the beach begging for food from the cruisers. They are as large as a small pony and swim out to your dinghy as you approach."
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"Civil and Environmental Engineering at
MIT"
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