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Business Editors |
World Trade Center Forensic Study Wins ACEC National Engineering Award |
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DC, WASHINGTON, Mar. 24 -/E-Wire/Business Wire/-- The engineering industry's top national award has been given to Weidlinger Associates of New York City for its forensic study of the World Trade Center collapse.
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The study dispelled several theories about the collapse, including those that questioned the structural integrity of the buildings, and found that the structure actually held up remarkably well to the airplane impacts, saving thousands of lives, but eventually succumbed to subsequent structure-weakening fires.
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At a black-tie "Engineering Excellence Awards" gala, known as the "Academy Awards" of the engineering industry, held this week in Washington, D.C., Weidlinger received the "Grand Conceptor" Award for the most significant engineering achievement of the past year. The award is given by the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), which represents more than 5,000 engineering companies nationwide.
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ACEC also presented seven "Grand Awards" for engineering excellence and 16 "Honor Awards."
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Considered the most definitive analysis of the World Trade Center collapse, the Weidlinger study used careful examination of original engineering drawings, thousands of video/photographic evidence and computer simulations to reconstruct the exact manner each building collapsed.
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The study also determined that each tower collapsed in a unique way, and that the collapse of the South Tower did not contribute to the collapse of the North Tower.
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The study serves as a benchmark for the construction of safer buildings, especially in dense urban environments, and promises to influence change to current building code standards throughout the nation.
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Past ACEC "Grand Conceptor Award" winners include: the NASA Space Shuttle Launching Complex, Vandenberg AFB (1985), Baltimore's 1.7-mile Fort McHenry Tunnel (1986), Seattle's Key Arena (1996), and Honolulu's AEOS Space Tracking Telescope Facility (2000).
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2004 EEA Grand Award Winners are:
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Judy & Arthur Zankel Hall, New York City, by Robert Silman Associates
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Building a third performance space within historic Carnegie Hall meant locating the new structure directly underneath the famed Isaac Stern Auditorium, and only nine feet away from the New York subway system. The result is the new Judy & Arthur Zankel Hall, a magnificent 644-seat state-of-the-art theatre and educational center.
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Highcliff Apartments, Hong Kong, by Magnusson Klemencic Associates
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Perched on a steep cliff in crowded Hong Kong, the 73-story, 818-foot-high Highcliff Apartments building is incredibly slender yet strong. Barely 60 feet at its widest point, most of the structure's floor plan is no more than 43 feet wide. The project team used a new liquid mass system located at the top of the structure to counteract building sway amid the region's frequently occurring typhoon-force winds.
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Puente de la Unidad Bridge, Monterrey, Mexico, by International Bridge Technologies, Inc.
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The visually stunning Puente de la Unidad bridge spans across the Santa Catarina River and features a breathtaking main span supported by an inclined concrete pylon and 13 pairs of stay cables. The structure includes four lanes of traffic and an impressive central promenade along the main span.
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Wetland Water Reuse Project, Fort Worth Texas, by Alan Plummer Associates, Inc./CH2M HILL, Ducks Unlimited
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The Wetland Water Reuse Project is the first system of its kind in the country that eliminates the need for biological or chemical processes to achieve suitable water quality. Flows in the Trinity River in Texas are primarily composed of highly treated wastewater discharges from treatment plants in the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area. The project team developed a unique 243-acre field-scale system of wetlands to further filter out contaminants from treatment plants in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
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Rocky Reach Dam Fish Bypass, Bellevue, Washington by CH2M HILL
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The new fish bypass on the Columbia River replaces the use of spillways to allow migrating fish to pass through turbine intakes at Rocky Reach Dam, greatly reducing fish injury, and saving enough hydroelectric power to serve the energy needs of 8,000 homes. Without the bypass, the dam would need to "spill" up to half its average daily flow during spring and summer fish migrations, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue each year.
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San Francisco International Airport Extension Project, by Bay Area Transit Consultants
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The extension to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system fulfilled a decades-old dream of a direct rail connection from San Francisco to its airport. The project added 8.7 miles and three stations to the BART system: San Bruno, South San Francisco, and the Millbrae Station.
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The Kabul-Kandahar Road, Afghanistan, by The Louis Berger Group, Inc.
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War damage, mines, and renegade combatants made most of the approximately 300 mile-long Kabul-Kandahar Road in Afghanistan largely unusable. After the removal of more than a thousand pieces of weapons, ammunition and artillery, the project team strengthened and repaved the damaged roadway under constant danger in only 230 days. What was a two-day journey now takes only four to five hours.
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To receive electronic photos of the "Grand Conceptor Award" winner, or any of the ACEC Engineering Excellence Award winners, contact Alan D. Crockett 202-682-4301.
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The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) is the business association of America's engineering industry, representing approximately 6,000 independent engineering companies throughout the United States engaged in the development of America's transportation, environmental, industrial, and other infrastructure. Founded in 1910 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., ACEC is a national federation of 51 state and regional organizations.
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