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Imperial Library
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Index
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Civil engineering is the grandparent of all engineering.
Engineering succeeds and fails because of the black box.
The heart of engineering isn’t calculation; it’s problem solving.
You are a vector.
Every problem is built on familiar principles.
Every problem is unique.
“Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.”
An object receives a force, experiences stress, and exhibits strain.
When a force acts on an object, three things can happen.
As a force acting on a fixed object increases, three things happen.
Four material characteristics
Materials compete.
A battery works because of corrosion.
Harder materials don’t ensure longevity.
Soldiers shouldn’t march across a bridge.
Why Galloping Gertie collapsed
Softer materials aren’t always more protective.
Buildings want to float.
Automobiles want to fly.
The ground effect
A roundabout is the safest, most efficient intersection.
Friction is the enemy of a rolling object, but it is what allows it to roll.
Accuracy and precision are different things.
There’s always a trade-off.
Quantification is approximation.
Random hypothesis #1
Engineers wear a belt and suspenders.
A triangle is inherently stable.
The complexity of a truss is a product of simplicity.
Structures are built from the bottom up, but designed from the top down.
The contents of a building might weigh more than the building.
A skyscraper is a vertically cantilevered beam.
Earthquake design: let it move a lot or not at all.
Make sure it doesn’t work the wrong way.
Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse
The best beam shape is an I—or better yet, an I.
Get even more out of a beam.
“Inventing is the mixing of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less materials you need.”
A masonry arch gets stronger as it does more work.
The four eras of the wall
The first building code
Drawings explain only some things.
Concrete doesn’t dry; it cures.
Concrete and cement are different things.
Concrete and steel are ancient, not modern, materials.
3 stages of manufacturing
More inspections and fewer inspections both produce more errors.
Early decisions have the greatest impact.
Working faster doesn’t save money.
Perfect reliability isn’t always desirable.
Human time to failure is 1,000 years.
Few customers will pay for a perfectly engineered product.
The Ford Pinto wasn’t unsafe.
Be careful when asking a part to do more than one thing.
Design a part to fail.
Keep one hand in your pocket.
Keep one leg still.
How to read a topographic plan
Balance cut and fill.
Work with the natural order.
Air is a fluid.
Heat cannot be destroyed, and cold cannot be created.
A radiator doesn’t just radiate.
The most reliable source of heating and cooling is the earth.
Available solar energy is 50,000 times our energy need.
The environmental engineering paradigm shift
Ten Commandments for Environmental Engineers
Water is constant.
Water recycling
Wastewater treatment imitates nature.
Don’t presume the solution.
Think systematically.
“We looked at the program and divided it into the essential elements, which turned out to be thirty-odd. And we proceeded methodically to make one hundred studies of each element. At the end of the hundred studies we tried to get the solution for that element that suited the thing best…. Then we proceeded to break down all logical combinations of these elements, trying to not erode the quality we had gained in the best of the hundred single elements; and then we took those elements and began to search for the logical combinations of combinations, and several of such stages…. And went right on down the procedure. And at the end of that time…we really wept, it looked so idiotically simple we thought we’d sort of blown the whole bit. And [we] won the competition.”
Think systemically.
A successful system won’t necessarily work at a different scale.
The behavior of simple systems and complex systems can be predicted. In-between systems: not so much.
Stop a crack by rounding it off.
Seek negative feedback.
Enlarge the problem space.
The Tunkhannock Viaduct
Almost everything is a chemical, and almost every chemical is dangerous.
A chemical equation isn’t exactly an equation.
Equilibrium is a dynamic, not static, state.
An electric current works only if it can return to its source.
A seesaw works by balancing moments.
Center of gravity
It’s a column, not a support column.
Articulate the why, not just the what.
All engineers calculate. Good engineers communicate.
How to read, but not necessarily name, a cantilever bridge
Random hypothesis #2
Now you’re the chord. Next you’ll be the joint.
The engineering of satisfaction
Engineering events are human events.
There’s design besides the design.
Identify a benchmark against which outcomes will be measured.
“The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing.”
While getting the one thing right, do more than one thing.
The fix for an apparent engineering problem might not be an engineering fix.
Engineering usually isn’t inventing the wheel; it’s improving the wheel.
The Great Continuum
Notes
Index
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