Progressive Engineer Magazine News

ATC Associates celebrates 30th anniversary

2012-02-08T17:48:00.000-08:00

ATC Associates, an engineering and environmental consulting firm specializing in geotechnical engineering, construction materials testing, special inspections, industrial hygiene, and environmental engineering services, is celebrating its 30^th anniversary this year.

Over the last three decades, ATC has worked behind the scenes for hundreds of Fortune 500 companies and was on the scene within hours of several national disasters. From working with the WTC recovery and redevelopment efforts to environmental testing in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as well as providing geotechnical services and construction materials testing on hundreds of major capital improvement projects across the country, ATC has served as a resource for organizations in petroleum, real estate, retail, manufacturing, financial services, insurance, construction, telecommunications, education, government, and hospitality.

ATC was founded in 1982 in Sioux Falls, SD as an analytical laboratory. The company’s initial services included water quality, lake restoration, and general analytical testing. As demand for ATC’s services grew, it added drug screening for the dog and horse racing industries as well as agricultural consulting and informational research. Adapting to an evolving market, ATC began conducting asbestos analyses and air monitoring services in the same decade, birthing a new direction for the growing company.

“Asbestos management was a hot topic in the early 1980s,” said Don Beck, one of ATC’s first employees, now a senior VP overseeing the North Region’s 30 offices. “In response to EPA regulations, asbestos abatement gained momentum, changing the face of our company from an analytical lab to environmental consulting firm.”

Driven by contractor and clients requests, ATC continued to expand its reach and opened several offices nationwide including New York City, Denver, Lincoln and Omaha, NE, Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City and Los Angeles. During the 1990s, to increase geographic influence and continue to satisfy its diversified client base, ATC acquired more than 10 companies and 50 additional offices nationwide. Today with more than 71 offices in 39 states, ATC generates more than $200 million in services annually and employs over 1,600 professional, technical, and support personnel nationwide. Learn more at www.atcassociates.com.

Atkins goes to Alcatraz

2012-02-08T17:41:00.000-08:00

The National Park Service (NPS) has selected Atkins to provide construction management services for structural repairs to the famous federal penitentiary building on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.

Located approximately one mile north of San Francisco, Alcatraz Island is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and contains numerous structures. The most notorious—Building #68, the cellhouse—served as a U.S. penitentiary for a concentration of “difficult-to-manage prisoners” from 1934 to 1963. Popularly known as “The Rock,” Alcatraz has been featured and creatively imagined in many movies, TV shows, books, and games.

The cellhouse improvements are part of the ongoing Alcatraz Historic Structures Stabilization project and will involve repairs to failing beams in the citadel and shower room areas that support the cellblock structures. This will include replacing beams that support the cellhouse floor to stop and repair structural damage, repairing the cellhouse structural floor and associated non-structural patching, and repairing/restoring salvageable beams to protect them from further deterioration.

“Atkins has had the great opportunity to work on many of America’s National Historic Landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, Hoover Dam, Faneuil Hall, and now Alcatraz,” says senior group manager Gary Self, PE. “We look forward to addressing the unique challenges of this project, such as working on an island that is only accessible by boat, with no land lines for telephone or data services. Not to mention we’re facing the cold, strong, hazardous currents of the San Francisco Bay and the penitentiary’s chilling past.”

Atkins’ services will include on-site inspections, construction contract administration, office services, and site visits.

KS Associates offers 3D laser scanning services

2012-02-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

KS Associates, a multi-disciplined civil engineering and surveying firm, has announced that it now offers 3D laser scanning services. This next-generation technology provides architects, engineers, real estate professionals, facility managers, and design professionals an unprecedented level of precision and detail at a fraction of the time.

KS Associates has procured a Leica ScanStation C10, which collects thousands of points per second at the push of a button. The ScanStation C10 can scan an entire room in less than two minutes and can generate richly detailed computer models of the scanned environment. The ScanStation C10 generates “point clouds,” or three-dimensional, photo-realistic datasets representing the external surface of objects. The result is a reliable, robust, and detailed basis for design of the built environment.

According to Mark Skellenger, P.E., vice president of KS Associates, “3D laser scanning allows our clients to virtually revisit the project site throughout the entire design process, which can save time and enhance the design process. Clients appreciate the ability to extract datasets at any time. They have access to information that might not have been considered critical at the time of field data capture, data that would be time-consuming and costly to re-capture.”

3D laser scanning offers additional benefits, such as the ability to non-intrusively capture data for areas that were otherwise inaccessible, such as high-level bridges and overpasses; intricate, hard-to-reach piping systems; or historically preserved off-limit areas, which can now be scanned remotely. Applications ideal for laser scanning include building design and construction, interior design, civil/site modeling, transportation engineering, historical renovation, process engineering, and as-builts.

According to Skellenger, “Not only will 3D laser scanning enhance our surveying capabilities, it will allow us to serve clients for new, interesting applications, such as industrial refineries and plants, mining and exploration, and possibly forensics.”

Based in Elyria, OH, KS Associates is a civil engineering and land surveying firm founded in 1987. The firm provides land survey and mapping services; design, bidding and construction administration of public infrastructure and transportation projects; and site development engineering services for residential, commercial and institutional projects. For more information visit: www.ksassociates.com.

Michelle Halle Stern joins HDR as director of sustainable design services

2012-02-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

Michelle Halle Stern, AIA, P.E. and LEED Fellow recently joined HDR Architecture as director of sustainable design services out of the firm’s Chicago office. Formerly an associate at Perkins + Will, Halle Stern is well known for her work in sustainable design for private and public sector organizations, including healthcare, government, and academic projects. She is a registered architect and engineer with over 20 years of diversified experience in the industry. A frequent guest speaker, author, and educator on green design, LEED, and the integrative design process, Halle Stern will serve as a leader and mentor for HDR designers. A strategic thinker with a record of building consensus and developing strong team relationships, Halle Stern will implement new sustainable design strategies and provide assistance on projects and other key initiatives.

Halle Stern is committed to Chicago and sustainable design, having started Chicago’s local U.S. Green Building Council Chapter. She is a Core Member of the USGBC Environmental Quality Technical Advisory Group as well as a member of the USGBC Project Based Learning Working Group. She also serves on the USGBC LEED Faculty and is an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Halle Stern holds a Master of Science in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago as well as a Bachelors of Science in Architectural Studies and Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

GZA GeoEnvironmental wins ACEC Engineering Excellence Award

2012-02-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

GZA GeoEnvironmental, a geotechnical and environmental consulting firm, has received the 2012 Engineering Excellence Special Recognition Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Maine for their embankment preload program as part of the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge Replacement Project in Portland and South Portland, Maine.

The South Portland Approach for the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge Replacement faced difficult constraints, including waterfront construction over the mudflats, permit-based limits on the allowable disturbance area, and a subsurface profile including up to 90 feet of moderate-strength, compressible marine clay. The preliminary and final design and construction of a preload program for the South Portland Approach was executed by the design-build team to provide a cost-effective, safe solution that met the project performance and safety criteria. GZA was the engineer-of-record for the South Portland Preload portion of the project, responsible for design and construction documents and a member of the Reed & Reed / T.Y. Lin International design-build team.

GZA envisioned a 25-foot high earthfill preload embankment supported by temporary, anchored, sheet pile cofferdam to limit the environmental impact on the mudflats and developed this concept for preliminary design. During final design, GZA developed a subsurface model for geotechnical engineering evaluations and evaluated short-term and long-term global stability, long-term settlement adjacent to proposed piles, and general approach embankment areas and designed and installed wick drains to promote consolidation. The design met the constraints imposed by the Design-Build RFP, allowed for efficient foundation design, and was constructible for the contractor. The South Portland embankment concept saved over $1 million compared to alternative design approaches. The design incorporated Maine DOT, highway and bridge designer, and constructor collaboration through detailed design reviews at the 50 and 80 percent submittal stages.

Geotechnical instrumentation was designed, installed, and monitored to assess the performance of the preload, including settlement plates, piezometers, and inclinometers. The instrumentation confirmed that the preload goals had been achieved, and GZA recommended removal of the preload in winter of 2011, approximately five months ahead of schedule.

Founded in 1964, GZA GeoEnvironmental is a multi-disciplined firm providing environmental consulting, geotechnical and geo-civil engineering, environmental remediation, regulatory compliance, litigation support, air quality, solid waste services, specialty construction, occupational health and safety, and site development services. GZA maintains corporate offices in Norwood and has 550 employees and operates 24 offices in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Great Lakes regions. For additional information, visit www.gza.com.

Virginia Tech professor's research questions urban development planning relating to flooding

2012-02-08T09:12:00.000-08:00

Extreme weather can result in a violent act of nature, and in the past year, much attention has been paid to the disastrous impacts of flooding during the spring and summer. For example, residents of cities and agricultural farmland found themselves at odds when the Army Corps of Engineers wrestled with opening floodgates to channel water away from the metropolitan areas of New Orleans and Baton Rouge in May 2011 and directing the floodwaters to small Louisiana towns and farms.

Water became the enemy, but it might have been an unnecessary role. "The relationship between flood conditions and the spatial distribution of urban development has been poorly studied, often because of limitations on available data about stream flow or the common use of generic watershed models in urban hydrologic modeling," says Glenn Moglen, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech. Moglen holds a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and works in the university's National Capital Region.

Moglen has spent years studying the issue of limiting impervious surfaces such as pavements that act as impenetrable materials to water. He has called for planners "to allow a safety margin when regulating land based on imperviousness, to steer development to already urbanized locations and away from relatively undisturbed locations, and to take advantage of situations that mitigate the deleterious effects of imperviousness on stream ecology." His expertise garnered him an appointment as a special guest editor of an issue of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Journal of Hydrologic Engineering. And he has current funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to calculate flood magnitudes as part of the agency's efforts to modernize its maps.

In addition, Moglen and his former Ph.D. student Alfonso Mejia of Washington, D.C., who has now graduated from the University of Maryland, have developed a number of distinct models of urbanization that show patterns of impact from both sprawl and clustered development that reduce impacts to water resources. Their work was published in the April 2009 Journal of Hydrologic Engineering. Moglen says their approach differed from previous studies because they looked at distributed effects within a watershed and not the aggregate results at the watershed outlet. They also focused on impacts generated by the spatial forms of urban patterns. In the article, they cast doubt on land management policies promoting a fixed threshold of impervious surfaces. They show that this can result in the unintended consequence of favoring sprawl-type development. "Those within the planning community who espouse threshold-based controls on land development" should be concerned, they wrote.

In another study for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Moglen and Dorianne Shivers of Takoma Park, MD, who also worked with Moglen when she was a student, used data from 78 urbanized stream gages across the United States for a study on urban flood frequency. They compared their models to previous results, and a key finding was a new method for estimating floods at ungaged sites using common, easily obtained data. This method eliminated the need to perform costly site visits to make urban flood estimates.

Their USGS study also indicated which mathematical models on peak discharges of water performed best: an imperviousness distribution model and a population density distribution model. "These models depend on three predictors each: rural discharge, imperviousness or population density, and imperviousness or population density uniformity. The imperviousness or population density predictor serves to scale up the rural discharge, and the imperviousness or population density uniformity predictor scales down the discharge. This uniformity predictor quantifies the homogeneity of the development in a watershed," they concluded.

Mike Frischmann of Michaels Energy to present at IEPEC in Rome

2012-02-08T08:59:00.000-08:00

Michaels Energy announces that Mike Frischmann, an energy engineer at Michaels, was selected as a presenter for the 2012 International Energy Program Evaluation Conference (IEPEC) in Rome, Italy.

Mike submitted a paper to the IEPEC conference planning committee on the subject of "On-site Measurement and Verification Versus Project File Review." This paper will demonstrate the quantitative and qualitative differences between file reviews and on-site evaluations. Over 210 abstracts were submitted, and his paper was among those accepted for publication and presentation at IEPEC in Rome on June 12-14, 2012. A CD will also be produced with presentation papers and made available to all attendees of IEPEC.

IEPEC is an annual professional conference for energy program implementers; evaluators of those programs; local, state, national and international representatives; and academic researchers actively working in the field of evaluation. The purpose of the conference is to provide a forum for the presentation, critique, and discussion of objective evaluations of energy programs. For more information, visit www.iepec.org.

Michaels Energy, a division of Michaels Engineering, specializes in energy efficiency consulting and provides technical, program management, and administrative support for utility demand-side management (DSM) programs. Michaels also provides services to end-users including investment grade feasibility studies, retrocommissioning studies, and LEED consulting. Michaels provides a wide range of energy and engineering support services to utilities, government agencies, and non-profit corporations that administer energy efficiency programs for end users.

Entech Engineering receives citation from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives

2012-02-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Entech Engineering has announced that The House of Representatives of Pennsylvania recognizes the firm’s high standards of service and contributions to the well-being of the community and the commonwealth and is celebrating the momentous occasion of its 30th

anniversary in business. This citation was sponsored by the entire Berks County House Delegation: Representatives Thomas Caltagirone, Dante Santoni, Jr., Douglas Reichley,

Jim Cox, Gary Day, Mark Gillen, David Maloney, and Mike Tobash.

Located in downtown Reading, Pennsylvania, Entech is a full-service provider of engineering and architectural services, from planning through design and construction. Satellite offices are located in Pottsville, Schuylkill County; Mountaintop, Luzerne County; and Lititz, Lancaster County. For more information, visit www.entecheng.com.

Patent assigned to Laird Technologies telematics and wireless M2M inventors

2012-02-08T08:31:00.000-08:00

Laird Technologies, Inc., a designer and supplyer of customized performance-critical components and systems for advanced electronics and wireless products, has been awarded a U.S. patent for the work of three of its wireless and M2M inventors: RF Engineer III Joseph Combi, Director of Engineering Ayman Duzdar, and RF Engineer III Gary Reed.

U.S. Patent #8045592 was issued for work with multiple antenna multiplexers, demultiplexers, and antenna assemblies. The multiplexers and assemblies receive signals from the multiple antennas in a system and combines those signals for transmission into a single output. The demultiplexers receive the single input and output the signal onto separate receivers. The antennas used in this patent included GPS (1574 to 1576 MHz) and world cell frequencies (824 to 960 MHz and 1710 to 2170 MHz).

“The benefit of this technology is that it reduces the number of cables required in a long cable harness, mostly in the OEM automotive market, as they have control over the receiver,” says Ayman Duzdar. “It can also be used in tandem with a demultiplexer of the same nature to separate the combined signals into multiple receivers. It reduces cost spent on the harnesses by reducing the number of cables necessary.” The antenna multiplexers are ideal for any market where multiple antenna signals are being delivered from one antenna module to multiple receiver modules and where GPS and cell functionality is required.

Laird Technologies is a designer and manufacturer of telematics products with a product portfolio consisting of antennas and integrated reception systems designed to meet the multiple communications requirements of modern vehicles. This includes performance-critical products for wireless and other advanced electronics applications as well as electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, thermal management products, specialty metal products, signal integrity components, and antenna solutions, as well as radio frequency (RF) modules and wireless remote controls and systems. Custom products are supplied to all sectors of the electronics industry including the handset, telecommunications, data transfer and information technology, automotive, aerospace, defense, consumer, medical, mining, railroad and industrial markets. A unit of Laird PLC, Laird Technologies employs over 12,000 employees in more than 49 facilities located in 16 countries.

International award for Syracuse Green Data Center technology

2012-02-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

GEM Inc., of Walbridge, OH and Capstone Turbine Corporation of Los Angeles, CA have received the 2011 NOVA Award from the Construction Innovation Forum (CIF) for microturbine technology at Syracuse University's Green Data Center, one of the most energy-efficient data centers in the world.

GEM’s subsidiary, BHP Energy, and Capstone received the award for the hybrid uninterruptible power source (UPS) microturbine system first used at the Syracuse data center. As a new technology that improves reliability and reduces energy cost, the Capstone Hybrid UPS system anchors a larger integrated power system designed by GEM.

The Capstone Hybrid UPS will be installed next at the University of Toledo. GEM is designing and building a power system for the university’s Green Data Center, which shares fundamental attributes of the Syracuse system. The University of Toledo project, to be complete in late 2012, will showcase modular construction and integration techniques that may result in plug-and-playapplication at mission critical facilities across the globe.

More than 600 nominations from 20 countries were considered for the 2011 NOVA award. "Each year, the NOVA Awards honor top innovations in construction from around the world that increase quality and efficiency and reduce cost," says Rasha Stino, CIF Vice Chair. "An expert jury carefully selects award-winning innovations with the assistance of leading engineers serving as investigators. Capstone's Hybrid UPS MicroTurbine technology uniquely addresses the needs of power-critical applications."

"The Hybrid UPS MicroTurbine is an innovation, changing the world of mission critical energy delivery," said David Blair, President of BHP Energy, a GEM Inc. subsidiary.

The Hybrid UPS Microturbine is the first onsite power system in the world to integrate low-emission microturbines with a dual-conversion UPS to provide power for mission-critical loads. The system delivers uninterrupted electrical power, while overall system efficiencies reach 85-90 percent, reducing energy costs, fuel consumption, and maintenance costs.

Hussien Shousher, president of GEM Inc., says, “As we move further into the 21^st Century, most industry and government studies predict a future with more grid electrical interruptions and higher energy costs. Our packaged solution, which includes Hybrid UPS turbines, can be rapidly implemented to keep critical infrastructure both operational and financially viable.”

Editor's note: See our feature story on the Syracuse Green Data Center at www.progressiveengineer.com/features/Orange-Goes-Green.htm

Sewall forms multidisciplinary Environmental Sciences group

2012-02-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

James W. Sewall Company has formed a new multidisciplinary Environmental Sciences group to deliver solutions in water resources and water quality management to government, industry, and commercial clients. Under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey S. (Steve) Kahl, the Environmental Sciences group integrates Sewall expertise in engineering, GIS mapping, and natural resources to conduct research, seek grant funding, and implement large-scale projects in stormwater and watershed management, water quality monitoring, and environmental assessment, planning and permitting. In collaboration with partners in academia, business, government, and the nonprofit sector, the group will help clients adopt best practices and protocols that meet regulatory compliance, reduce liability and costs, and incorporate the newest and best environmental concepts.

“Water resources are the basis for assessment in most environmental regulations, but the latest research methods are rarely used,” says Dr. Kahl. “There are newer, less-expensive methods to manage stormwater, for example, than the mainstream pavement, pipe, and pond approach. We will provide our clients with practical and sustainable solutions that both protect water resources and influence public policy.”

Stormwater utilities, according to Kahl, are another sustainable solution that can help communities meet regulatory requirements at lower cost. “There are thousands of stormwater utilities in the United States, but only a few in New England. This gap represents an untapped financial opportunity for communities in the region to address flood and erosion control, water quality management, ecological preservation, and annual pollutant loads contained in stormwater discharges.”

Dr. Kahl brings to the group 30 years’ experience in environmental research and monitoring, watershed analysis, and natural resource and energy policy and program development. Prior to joining Sewall in April 2011, he was founding director of the Environmental Chemistry Laboratory and Senator George Mitchell Center at the University of Maine and of the Center for the Environment at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. He was instrumental in founding the Maine Water Conference as well as PEARL, the on-line GIS Maine lakes database, and has been awarded more than $25 million dollars in grants and contracts for universities and nonprofits to address such critical issues as acid rain, mercury, road salt, Atlantic salmon recovery, and water quality best management practices. He is also a member of the graduate faculty at University of Maine and a former staff member of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

Core members of the Environmental Sciences group include Senior Environmental Scientist Chester Bigelow, III, PWS and Staff Engineer Eeva Hedefine. A professional wetlands scientist for 25 years, Bigelow specializes in water quality monitoring, wetland restoration, and ecological conservation and management. Hedefine has expertise in utilities GIS and experience in environmental permitting, environmental site assessments, and analyses for windpower projects.

The group will also engage the in-house expertise of Sewall Senior Project Manager Michael Riley, PE. A new hire, Riley brings 20 years’ experience in water/wastewater engineering for both private firms and municipal utilities. As project manager, consultant, and chief engineer, he has supervised multi-disciplined water utility projects and designed over $100 million in public infrastructure in Maine. Most recently, he managed the Brewer Water Department, a municipal utility serving 10,000 customers.

Through the Environmental Sciences group, Sewall is also offering clients grant writing services to secure funding that meets their project needs. Dr. Diane Vatne, an experienced grant writer, will assist Sewall clients and the Environmental Sciences group in securing grants to fund a range of environmental projects. Dr. Vatne has written over $2,500,000 in successful grants for nonprofit organizations in Maine prior to joining Sewall.

According to Vice President Scott Graham, PE, “The Environmental Sciences initiative gives us a unique opportunity to bring Sewall staff together with the best professionals from academia, government, and business to help solve the challenging environmental problems our clients face.”

For more information on Sewall’s Environmental Sciences Group and the integrated services they offer, visit the Sewall web site at www.sewall.com/solutions/environmental/.

Founded in 1880, Sewall is an integrated team of geospatial, engineering and natural resource consultants who partner with clients to create practical, sustainable solutions. The company’s diverse portfolio is based on 130 years' experience in surveying, forestry consulting, and civil engineering; 60 years' in aerial mapping; and 20 years' in geospatial systems and software. In the last 10 years, Sewall’s offerings have expanded to include traffic, environmental, and structural engineering; renewable energy development; and geospatial web services.

Binghamton University opens new engineering and science facility

2012-02-04T14:46:00.000-08:00

Binghamton University recently opened its new Engineering and Science Building in a ceremony attended by elected officials, local leaders, and University representatives. The facility is located next to the Biotechnology Building, which is part of the University’s Innovative Technologies Complex (ITC).

The $66 million, two-story glass, metal and stone building will accommodate the expansion of the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science. Adding about 125,000 square feet to the ITC, the new building features state-of-the-art, flexible student and research laboratory space as well as suites for new business startups and offices that support the University’s ongoing and expanding industry partnerships.

“The Engineering and Science Building marks another exciting moment in the development of our University’s research programs,” says Binghamton University President C. Peter Magrath. “As a hub for innovation and discovery in the coming decades, the new facility, with its flexible and adaptive interior design, will encourage interdisciplinary work and help faculty researchers answer significant scientific questions. With cutting-edge sustainability features and space to grow faculty-industry partnerships, the Engineering and Science Building and our first-class programs position us well for even greater public service in the years ahead.”

The new building is home to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the Watson dean’s office. A large rotunda feature connects the two ITC buildings, offering access to laboratories and fostering closer interactions between departments and the research centers currently housed in the biotechnology facility.

The building is tracking LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum standards, incorporating passive solar energy for heating, geothermal technology for heating and cooling, energy-efficient windows and skylights to allow for maximum use of daylight. It also includes the latest technology for heat recovery and humidity control. And these green features are already earning recognition. The Engineering News Record recently named the facility the top ‘Green Project of the Year in the New York Region’ in its annual competition.

“The cutting-edge research cores, data center, green features and flexible student spaces in the Engineering and Science Building will serve as a catalyst for collaboration and discovery,” said Krishnaswami “Hari” Srihari, dean and distinguished professor of the Watson School. “The building provides our remarkable faculty, staff and students with the innovative and practical working environment that will further strengthen and enhance our research, partnership and scholarship opportunities throughout the region, state and beyond.”

Several unique features have been incorporated so that some building systems, such as the mechanical systems driving the building’s heating and cooling equipment, remain accessible to serve as a teaching tool for engineering students. The design has also taken into consideration the core research model, which will give faculty and students in developing research areas such as microelectronics or network security, the ability to share equipment and ideas, and thereby foster collaboration and limit the duplication of resources.

Additionally, the building’s mechanical equipment is located in a tower structurally separated from the building so vibrations do not adversely affect specialized laboratories and research. The building’s two-story photovoltaic wall will provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate research in solar technology.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign starts construction on electrical and computer engineering building

2012-02-04T14:19:00.000-08:00

The $95 million Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Building at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, designed by SmithGroup, has recently begun construction. The new ECE building will create 230,000-square feet of instructional, research, and office space in the heart of the university’s engineering campus. The move will consolidate functions currently dispersed over multiple locations into a single facility, creating a flexible environment to inspire and support interdisciplinary learning and collaboration. When completed in fall 2014, the project will be a major addition to the university’s Urbana-Champaign campus. The university has received $47.5 million in funding from the state of Illinois and has secured $37.5 million in private support. Fundraising is ongoing for the remaining $10 million.

The new facility will be constructed on the northern edge of campus adjacent to the circa-1989 Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology and across from the Coordinated Science Laboratory, both SmithGroup-designed facilities. The building program includes classrooms; teaching and research laboratories, including an instructional clean room; an auditorium; faculty and administrative offices; and student gathering areas. It will also house laboratories for research in the fields of thin film and charged particles, optical physics, and electromagnetism, along with varied spaces for the university’s power and energy systems, materials research, remote sensing, and space sciences groups.

“SmithGroup has enjoyed a longstanding history on UI’s Urbana-Champaign campus,” said Andy Vazzano, FAIA, LEED AP, leader of SmithGroup’s Corporate Science & Technology Practice. “This new building is where future innovations and sustainable research practices are imagined and refined.”

“This building will be a great benefit to our students, not only in the ECE Department, but in our college and beyond,” says ECE Department Head Andreas C. Cangellaris. “This new building is designed to inspire engineering education driven by societal needs and opportunities. With these new facilities and labs, we will continue to educate the leaders in our profession for generations to come.”

The ECE building will also establish a sustainability prototype for future University of Illinois projects. Minimizing the facility’s carbon footprint and optimizing energy efficiency were key drivers behind its design. Sustainable considerations include a terra cotta rainscreen cladding system in conjunction with an R-30 thermal envelope for enhanced energy performance. Passive solar design features such as building orientation, 30 percent overall glazing, and exterior shading devices lend to greater daylighting and reduced energy loads. In addition to maintaining a consistent material palette that harmonizes with the neighboring brick buildings, terra cotta baguettes act as exterior shading devices on 80 percent of the glazing. The building is targeted to achieve LEED Platinum certification, the highest level of building efficiency, and is anticipated to receive an EPA Energy Star rating of 99 on a 100-point scale.

The ECE Department is also striving to attain a net zero energy design that will enable the building to supply one hundred percent of its energy demands over each year by incorporating renewable energy systems after construction. SmithGroup’s architects and engineers from KJWW have integrated a range of systems that will aid in achieving this goal, including infrastructure for a future array ofphotovoltaic cells, displacement and demand control ventilation, heat recovery chillers with net metering, and a chilled beam system for cooling and heating the classroom tower.

The building will incorporate many notable contributions of ECE faculty and staff. It will feature the most sophisticated LED and fluorescent lighting, complex energy conversion systems utilizing advanced power electronics, and intelligent systems and interfaces supported by ever-evolving control and computer technologies.

Based in Chicago, SmithGroup is a large architecture and engineering firm composed of client industry-focused practices serving the education, science & technology, workplace, and healthcare markets. A national leader in sustainable design, SmithGroup has 354 LEED professionals and 67 LEED certified projects.

New profile posted: Mechanical engineer Nick Fenelli heads Vehicle Technologies

2012-02-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

Nick Fenelli

Material Handling and More

By Tom Gibson

In spring 2008, Nick Fenelli found himself at a crossroads in his engineering career. He had gone to work for Airtrax in Trenton, NJ as a consultant several years earlier and had become a right-hand person of company founder and owner Peter Amico in running the business. Airtrax pioneered a unique type of wheel that makes forklift trucks more maneuverable and has spawned a new breed of mobility platforms.

But Amico died in 2006, bringing a change in management. “We had established a plan to move forward, but the new management didn’t appreciate that and decided to go down a different road,” Fenelli recalls. “They brought in a group of private investors who saw the company as an opportunity to make some quick money and did that and in the process caused the company to collapse.”

“When we were all handed our pink slips that day, we talked about what we could do,” Fenelli continues. A group of four former employees, nearly the entire technical staff, decided to band together and carry on as equity partners, calling themselves Vehicle Technologies, Inc., Vetex for short. They poured in their personal savings and sweat equity. After about a year, they convinced the directors of Airtrax to give them a limited license to build the Sidewinder, the forklift they had developed using their special omni-directional wheel.

“We were happy doing the work, and we thought it had a potential besides being able to generate a quick buck for some investors. We thought we could actually change the way people do things and improve efficiencies in a whole lot of fields,” Fenelli relates. Today, he finds himself the president of Vetex and leading it into new territory.

The Sidewinder has four unique omni-directional wheels, each consisting of six pairs of polyurethane-covered steel rollers mounted on a hub with tapered roller bearings and angled at 45 degrees to the wheel itself. Each wheel runs on its own AC motor, transmission, brake, and controller.

Despite having no steering mechanism, the Sidewinder can travel in any direction and in any manner a standard vehicle goes, and more – think of a skid-steer that can move straight sideways. Fenelli calls it easy to use. “Wherever you point the joystick, that’s the direction you go, and the more you push the stick, the faster it goes.” If you twist the stick, the vehicle rotates on its own axis. For the vehicle to move laterally to the left, the two left wheels spin toward each other and the two right wheels away from each other.

Playing with a New Toy
As I enter Vetex’ office, Fenelli shows me a prototype demonstration vehicle with the omni-directional wheels, complete with radio control. Here’s my chance to tinker with it. The radio control unit has three joysticks, one for translational movement and two for rotational. He shows me how they can program a vehicle to rotate around any vertical axis you choose.

Festooned with plastic rollers, the omni-directional
wheel lies at the heart of Vehicle Technologies
and Finelli’s efforts.

Fenelli then explains to me how the wheel concept works. “It’s all force vector balancing.” With the roller arrangement, the wheel imparts a force 45 degrees to the axis of the vehicle as it turns. If you spin the front and rear wheels in opposite directions, the fore-and-aft components of the forces will cancel out, but the sideways components will add to each other, making the vehicle go sideways. By varying the speed and direction of all four wheels, you can make the vehicle move any way you want.

I could feel Fenelli’s excitement for this concept. “It is always such a thrill to watch someone’s face when they first see it. Their expressions go through phases of bewilderment, understanding, awe, and joy,” he says. “There is no better feeling than the satisfaction we get sending a vehicle out into a new application for the first time, knowing it is going to dramatically change the way someone works, making their job easier, and enabling them to work smarter and more efficiently than before.”

With the omni-directional wheel on the Sidewinder forklift, warehouses can make more efficient use of their space. “It’s ideal for so many applications where there are space limitations or where just moving back and forth in one direction is inefficient to perform a task,” Fenelli explains.

Paul Hvass, senior research engineer at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has tested the technology on robotic machines and comments, “There’s huge potential for this platform. As the cost comes down, I think we’ll see wide adoption, especially for warehousing where the additional maneuverability is so superior. They’ll get a lot of interest from folks like us and then I think more broadly from other OEMs who want to integrate on top of their platform.”

Peter Amico started Airtrax to market the omni-directional wheel after buying the rights to the technology from the U.S. Navy, which had acquired the patent from a Swedish engineer, Bengt Erland Ilon, who invented the wheel in 1972. After spending millions of dollars and many years developing it, Airtrax sold the first Sidewinder in 2005.

Having come from Ewing, NJ, a suburb just northwest of Trenton, the 57-year-old Fenelli worked with hydraulic presses and process conveying systems earlier in his career. He also designed Yale and Hyster forklifts, working in Lancaster, PA for a while. He started consulting for Airtrax in 1998, designing several prototype vehicles, and came on full-time in 2005 to get U.L. approval for the company’s designs. He also set up a production facility and staffed it.

The first beneficiary of the wheel was the Sidewinder
fork truck, which can maneuver in tighter spaces
than conventional types.

Vetex has an office and lab in an industrial park in Ewing, and when I pull up, the sign outside confuses me at first because it says Alpha Automation. But Fenelli explains that Alpha is their landlord and also a vendor, through a friend. Specializing in electronic component fabrication, they make circuit boards for Vetex. The firm has a machine shop at this facility, one it shares with Alpha Automation. “We do limited production here, mainly subassemblies.” They have a larger manufacturing facility and warehouse in Bristol, PA near Philadelphia. “That plant has a loading dock, so we build bigger stuff there. But this office has air conditioning, so it’s nice for development work. We build the smaller systems here.”

Regional Engineering Workforce
A private employee-owned company, Vetex now has three equity partners, with Fenelli being the only degreed engineer – he has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh. His wife Mary is a principal and handles financial duties and purchasing; she also worked at Airtrax. Another partner, Bruce McLenegan was an electronic technician at Airtrax and now works as a systems engineer. Robert Cunningham serves as a part-time partner; he worked in quality control at Airtrax. They also have a programmer who was a consultant for Airtrax and an electrical engineer who consults with them. Another consultant develops electronic equipment and circuit boards, and a designer models designs using Autodesk Inventor. The consultants do the software programming using algorithms devised by Fenelli and McLenegan. With all these people spread out in central and southeastern PA and NJ, Fenelli muses, “A high degree of communication takes place via e-mail.”

They assemble the omni-directional wheels from parts supplied by several vendors. They build 21” wheels in their Bristol plant because they get used on Sidewinders there, while 17” wheels and prototypes are built in the Ewing facility. A vendor in California makes the rollers for them. Using a proprietary process, they mold the polyurethane oversize onto a metal bearing housing, and then a machine shop in Ewing machines the polyurethane down to the proper wheel profile.

As Fenelli tells it, “We have 60-plus fork trucks out there doing pretty well. We’re proud of the performance so far. They’re designed to be maintenance free.” He claims the rollers don’t wear out. “We have a bucket of rollers over in the corner that we’re still waiting to send out.” He tells me the idea sells to users, but it’s a hard sell to accountants because it costs three times as much as a standard truck.

This may partially explain why Vetex has put many of its eggs in another basket. They have developed a family of so-called mobility platforms based on the omni-directional wheel. These come into play for installing long or bulky loads, accurately positioning or docking a vehicle or piece of equipment, or simply maneuvering something in tight spaces.

Nick Fenelli shows how a roller is fabricated and assembled on to a wheel.

“One of the most exciting and visible markets we are in is the theatrical market. The technology has been showcased in two major motion pictures and featured in two TV series, but the latest and greatest is the introduction of our equipment into live theater,” Fenelli reports. In theatre applications, they typically build a set on an omni-directional platform. “You can move it about the theatre before, during, or after the performance, and you can set up a scene and have the scenery active in the production.” He explains how in one application, four of their vehicles move boats in a play called Jonah at the Sight and Sound Theatre in Lancaster, one of the biggest theaters in the world. The boats move by remote control via an iGPS navigation system, with the front of one of them extending out over the audience.

Vetex has also seen significant interest in mobility platforms for assembly and maintenance work on aircraft as well as loading weapons and manufacturing applications for missiles. Fenelli adds, “In construction applications, one of the main uses is for plumbers, pipefitters, and HVAC contractors to put plumbing and duct work up into the ceilings of buildings. They can accurately position and easily maneuver long loads where they have to go up in the air.”

Robots No Longer Stationary
Carrying this notion further, Fenelli likes to talk about a concept dubbed RoboMate, which involves putting a robot on a mobile platform. “For 40 years, you’ve had robots working in industrial environments bolted in one location and rotating, doing something over and over again. The next best thing coming down the pike is mobile robotics, having these platforms able to transport the robot and its functionality so it can perform tasks in multiple locations.”

“The robot can move around the manufacturing area and multi-task, bringing flexibility. It can use GPS, lidar, and infrared sensing,” Fenelli adds. A vehicle could use GPS in going outside between buildings and then radio control inside buildings. “There are a tremendous number of applications of this technology we haven’t even scratched the surface on.”

Two examples of mobility platforms that use the wheel.

SwRI has developed several new robotic systems for industries and processes that aren’t conducive to conventional robotics. Paul Hvass researches robotic applications such as aircraft paint stripping and says they came across Vetex’ technology a few years ago. They have applied it to their MR ROAM system, which uses a Nikon laser metrology system to locate a machine globally no matter where it’s located. “We’re trying to show the feasibility of using mobile-based robots. You can use more off-the-shelf components and reduce cost. Mobile is modular.” And he adds, “The omni-directional platform gives us freedom to optimize how the robot gets in position with respect to the work piece, to give the robot the most range of travel without encountering some kind of collision.”

This leads to what Fenelli describes as possibly the company’s main mission. For the RoboMate, “Almost everybody we come across wants a customized turnkey system. Our primary role is as a systems integrator merging different types of products. Anything people want to be mobile, we’ll put it together.” They use many technologies such as wire guidance and computer control. Besides omni-directional wheels, Vetex provides engineering assistance, drive system components, and compatible accessories to OEMs. Vetex also brings in technologies like MOSFET (metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor), sensors, and closed-loop control and can provide a complete 2WD or 4WD CAN (computer area network, like LAN but for vehicles). This bus-based traction system comes with torque or speed control, regenerative braking, automatic parking brake, and onboard diagnostics.

Fenelli rests easier these days knowing that he not only has a stable career but that Vetex is staffed by passionate engineers and technicians who see the full potential of the funky omni-directional wheel and its many possibilities. “It seems like customers are coming to us with new applications every other day,” he says. As their designs play out over time, they should prove that a quick profit isn’t always the answer.

For more information on Vehicle Technologies, visit www.vetexinc.com

For more information on Southwest Research Institute’s robotic research, visit www.mobilemanipulator.swri.org

New Company Launches Product that Could Change the Elevator Industry

2011-12-17T08:29:00.000-08:00

SmarTork of Boerne, TX has recently launched its much-anticipated spirator elevator hoistway door closer, which has received rave reviews in pre-production trials and promises to solve an age-old door-closing problem caused by wind. The company stands poised to begin manufacturing 2000 reel closers a week.

This brings to fruition a novel engineering effort that began many years ago. Kelly Marshall conceived the SmarTork reel closure in 1986 in conjunction with his sons Dean and Chris. The family ran an elevator business, and Dean needed ideas on how to stop persistent callbacks involving elevator doors subjected to high winds on the Gulf Coast. Kelly sketched a conical spiral that might solve the problem, citing the design used on garage door closers. Dean gathered garage door parts from the company’s garage door repair division and combined them with elevator parts to design the first prototype.

Kelly spent years on research and development, eventually using plastic mold injection to make cost-effective parts and create an operational prototype. He put a business plan together and arranged financing. But Kelly passed away in 2004, putting his dream on hold until October 2010, when his Chris and his family picked up the reins. They started SmarTork Inc. in 2010 and officially launched their door closer at the 2011 NAEC (National Association of Elevator Contractors) Exhibition in New Orleans. The company has teamed with an injection molding company and a spring manufacturer to develop tooling and produce production units.

Development of this product stems from the fact that elevators everywhere experience wind problems. For starters, all elevator shafts vent to the outside, as required by fire codes. “Any time somebody opens a door to the outside of the building, it automatically creates a pressurization or vacuum. You’ve always got air going in and out of the shafts,” says Chris Marshall, president of SmarTork. This makes the hoistway door harder to close.

A motorized operator opens and closes the doors on an elevator, both in the cab and hoistway. But this operator only closes the exterior door to a certain point before a clutch disengages it within the last one or two inches. “You need the spirator to assist that hoistway door to close that additional inch. And that’s where you get the tremendous amount of blowthrough,” Marshall explains.

The closer mounts on the interior of the shaft and moves back and forth with the hoistway door. It takes the form of a reel closer with a coil spring inside a spool that powers a cable. With conventional closers, the spring actually winds up when the door opens, meaning the torque and tension are at their lowest when the door is closing that last crucial inch or two, when you need the most force. Most spirators have a flat surface for winding the cable, so the torque is directly proportional to the tension on the cable. As one problem, the spring wears to the point that it occasionally needs to be rewound, resulting in many service callbacks.

The SmarTork spirator employs a conical helix design that puts the cable closer to the center of the hub at the critical stage of the windup cycle, yielding greater tension for a given torque. By crossing the torque and tension ratios, it actually increases tension at the door-closed position and reduces it in the open position with the spring winding up.

With tension applied more efficiently, the amps required to drive the door operator drop, resulting in power savings. Building owners may qualify for lower taxes by submitting to ASHRAE 90.1 as part of the overall building power savings, and it may improve their EPA and Energy Star ratings, which can also yield lower electricity rates and insurance premiums.

Besides a reduction in callbacks resulting from reduced spring wear and lower energy use, the spirator also offers increased safety because it closes the elevator door completely, engaging interlock switches to ensure safe operation.

For more information, visit www.smartorkinc.com

Ohio University Electrical Engineering Professor Receives Top Honor

2011-11-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) recently awarded Frank van Grass, Russ Professor of Electrical Engineering at Ohio University, with the 2011 Dr. John C. Ruth Digital Avionics Award recipient. Van Graas was honored at the 30th annual Digital Avionics Systems Conference in Seattle, WA for outstanding lifetime achievement in GPS navigation.

The professor at the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ College of Engineering and Technology is best known for his work on the Federal Aviation Administration’s Local Area Augmentation System for GPS approach and landing systems. His team at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton Roads, VA, was the first to prove that a differential GPS system could be used for aircraft autoland applications. He also led the team that developed the Integrated Multipath Limiting Antenna, which allowed GPS signals to be received with little distortion. Van Graas’ system is now installed at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, N.J.

AIAA’s Dr. John C. Ruth Digital Avionics Award honors outstanding achievement in both technical management and implementation of digital avionics in space or aeronautical systems, including systems analysis, design, development or application. AIAA is the world’s largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession, with more than 35,000 individual members worldwide and 90 corporate members.

Code Council and ASHRAE Partner on Energy-Saving Publication

2011-11-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

With safe and sustainable construction near the top of the national and global construction agenda, the International Code Council and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) have collaborated to create a publication with the most innovative energy-efficiency requirements for residential and commercial buildings. This new publication contains both the 2012 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2010 Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings in one volume to help ensure newly built and renovated buildings are in compliance with the latest codes and standards.
“Because the Code Council and ASHRAE documents complement each other, publishing them in one book benefits architects, designers, engineers, contractors and code officials,” ICC Product Development Senior Vice President Mark Johnson says. “This collaboration between the Code Council and ASHRAE provides the latest advances in energy regulation at a lower cost compared to purchasing the books separately. Because ASHRAE/IES 90.1-2010 is a referenced standard in the 2012 IECC, many professionals use both sets of requirements in their daily work.”
The 2012 IECC will be at least 15 percent more energy efficient than the 2009 edition, according to U.S. Department of Energy estimates. The code contains improved requirements for windows, doors, skylights and HVAC systems. The ASHRAE/IES 90.1-2010 has been expanded to include a broader scope, more detailed requirements and changes from more than 100 addenda improving all four of the major building components: envelopes, mechanical systems, lighting systems and service water heating. The significant changes in the two documents remain consistent with the American Recovery and Re-investment Act as required in federal laws.
“This new compilation will go far in helping the building industry reduce energy use and help to meet our nation’s energy goals,” ASHRAE President Ron Jarnagin said. “With publication of Standard 90.1-2010, ASHRAE and its partner Illuminating Engineering Society met an aggressive goal of 30 percent savings over the 2004 standard, reached in part thanks to significant public input from those in the building industry who helped us to increase the stringency of our flagship energy conservation standard."
The International Code Council is a member-focused association dedicated to helping the building safety community and construction industry provide safe and sustainable construction through the development of codes and standards used in the design, build and compliance process.
ASHRAE, founded in 1894, is an international organization of some 52,000 persons. ASHRAE fulfills its mission of advancing heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration to serve humanity and promote a sustainable world through research, standards writing, publishing and continuing education. ASHRAE and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America jointly developed Standard 90.1.

Jacobs Associates Welcomes William Gates

2011-11-06T08:23:00.000-08:00

Jacobs Associates welcomes William Gates, PhD, PE, PG, as a senior asssociate in its Seattle office. Dr. Gates is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer and specializes in geotechnical and rock engineering, blasting, and hydrogeology. He has 44 years of experience dealing with engineering geology and geotechnical problems worldwide. His solutions have covered a wide range of interrelated geological and geotechnical disciplines attendant to rock mechanics, rock slope engineering, construction blasting, hydrogeology, fluvial geomorphology, soils engineering, instrumentation, and site characterization.

Dr. Gates is nationally recognized for his rock slope and blasting expertise and is often receives invitations from the Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists to conduct one- and two-day short courses on rock slope engineering design and blasting. Dr. Gates’ additional specialties include photogeologic terrain and fracture trace analysis, fracture flow, and fracture mechanics. He developed and published the Hydro-potential Value (HP-value) technique, a method to semiquantitatively evaluate rock fracture characteristics and predict well yield, specific capacities, seepage, and no-flow conditions.

Dr. Gates is currently the lead rock engineer on Seattle City Light’s (SCL) Boundary Dam Rockfall Mitigation in Metaline, WA, where he conducted a detailed geologic investigation of the engineering characteristics and rockfall problems of the rock mass that houses the turbines and transformer bays.

Jacobs Associates provides solutions for underground projects in the water, wastewater, and transportation sectors. With an emphasis on tunnels and shafts, the firm offers a full range of design and construction management capabilities. They also offer the broader heavy civil construction industry a package of claims and dispute resolution services. Jacobs Associates has offices in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Pasadena, San Diego, Boston, New York, Auckland, and Melbourne. For more information, visit www.jacobssf.com.

HNTB Survey Says Rough Ride for Highway Funds

2011-11-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

According to the latest America THINKS survey from HNTB Corporation, people are fed up with congested, crumbling roads and are looking for decisions from local and regional officials about how to prioritize fixing them. Many Americans are bothered by the condition of their highways, with slightly more than one in two (54 percent) having a problem with the poor road conditions and half (50 percent) saying these byways are too jammed. "We can no longer ignore the growing liability our aging roads present to U.S. economic competitiveness and the mobility of our citizens," says Pete Rahn, leader of HNTB's national transportation practice. "Americans are feeling the pain every day as they commute and cross the nation's highways and bridges."

Congestion can be caused by several factors, such as a lack of alternative modes of transportation and continued population growth in today's "mega regions." In fact, 46 percent of Americans think there is excessive traffic in urban areas. Aging, inefficient highway lanes – whether there aren't enough of them or they are clogged with "slow moving" semi-trucks – also are seen as a cause of congestion. More than one-third (38 percent) of Americans are distressed by having to share lanes with large trucks and 25 percent think there aren't enough lanes. Perhaps fewer Americans would feel frustrated about the country's highways if trucks had space of their own. One-quarter (25 percent) think creating dedicated lanes required for large trucks would make the biggest difference in reducing traffic or bettering efficiency of freight delivery.

In 2007, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a groundbreaking plan to highlight the need to reconstruct and expand six critical interstates, which carry 22.7 percent of the nation's daily interstate travel and are crucial to the efficient flow of freight traffic. These interstate highways – Interstates 5, 10, 15, 69, 70 and 95 – were designated "Corridors of the Future."

According to the latest HNTB research, nearly 7 in 10 (69 percent) Americans would be likely to support funding long-term improvements of these particular interstate highways. "Given the support these interstates generate among many Americans, focusing on them could be a key to providing voters a new vision for addressing America's future mobility needs. They truly are corridors for the future," says Rahn. "However, investing in these unique routes will require a special combination of funding mechanisms, including lifting the current federal restriction on tolling these existing interstate corridors."

Previous America THINKS research has shown many Americans prefer tolling over increased gas taxes. This latest HNTB survey shows many Americans (66 percent) also would like their toll money to go toward solving the wear-and-tear and congestion issues that cause so many to have problems with our highways. Forty-one percent of these people would be willing to chip in for repairing or rebuilding worn-out roads and bridges. Others would prefer their tolls went to developing dedicated truck lanes (30 percent) or adding lanes to existing roads (24 percent). In fact, more than half (54 percent) of Americans would prefer taxes and highway toll money went to long-term interstate highway upgrades, such as creating truck-only lanes or high-occupancy lanes than short-term highway maintenance projects.

According to Rahn, tolls likely will be an expanding source for future interstate highway funding. "A variety of different funding strategies, such as tolling, will be needed as inflation, aging infrastructure, increased construction costs, alternative fuels and improved fuel economy vehicles continue to eat away at the purchasing power of the federal gas tax," he says.

While most Americans don't have a problem with the tolls on highways, they do have a range of what they would like to pay. More than 4 in 5 (82 percent) Americans think the average toll rate for every 10 miles on an interstate highway should be a dollar or less. In addition, 56 percent think the average toll rate for every 10 miles should be 50 cents or less.

More than seven in ten (72 percent) Americans feel that interstate highway funding decisions should be made at the local or state level, while far fewer (27 percent) think this should be a federal responsibility. Transportation departments – including state departments of transportation (28 percent), local and regional transportation authorities (28 percent) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (24 percent) – top the list of who many Americans think should be the primary decision makers for addressing the needs of interstate highways. Far fewer think this responsibility should be left to local (8 percent), state (7 percent) and federal (3 percent) elected officials.

Similarly, nearly half (41 percent) of Americans think the state departments of transportation – not federal or other state entities – should handle approving the addition of tolls on specific highways, bridges or tunnels. "It's clear Americans want to take the politics out of transportation prioritization and funding," says Rahn. "It's time for our elected officials to do the same so our critical interstate highway system remains a valuable, viable asset."

HNTB Corporation is an employee-owned infrastructure firm serving federal, state, municipal, military and private clients. Professionals nationwide provide planning, design, program management, and construction management services. For more information, visit www.hntb.com.

Additional Survey Results:

More Americans in the Northeast, Midwest and West than in the South think highways are in poor condition (60 percent versus 45 percent). And slightly more than half (53 percent) of Northeasterners, Southerners and Westerners think highways are too congested, compared to 37 percent of those in the Midwest.
More than half (53 percent) of those in the Northeast and West have an issue with overcrowding on highways in urban areas, versus 42 percent of those in Midwest and South.
More women than men (47 percent versus 29 percent) have an issue with sharing highway lanes with big trucks, while men are more likely than women (29 percent versus 22 percent) to have a problem with the lack of lanes on highways.
More men than women (59 percent versus 50 percent) would rather tax and toll money went to interstate highway improvements that would last a long time.
Those in the Northeast and West are more likely than those in the Midwest and South (50 percent versus 36 percent) to most support tolls for improving interstate highways that are crucial to commerce and congestion relief.
More women than men (78 percent versus 64 percent) think these decisions should be made at the local or state level.
Slightly more than one-third (34 percent) of Northeasterners think the federal government should handle these decisions, versus 25 percent of those in other regions.
Americans living in the South and West regions are more likely than those in the Northeast and Midwest (45 percent versus 36 percent) to believe the State Departments of Transportation should approve additional tolls.
Americans ages 45+ are more likely than those 18-44 (89 percent versus 74 percent) to think tolls for each 10 miles of interstate should not be more than one dollar.
Eighty-four percent of those in the Midwest, South and West regions don't think tolls for each 10 miles on an interstate should be more than a dollar, compared to 75 percent of those in the Northeast.

UTEP to Oversee Push for Green Engineers and Scientists

2011-11-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded a four-year, $3.2 million grant to the University of Texas at El Paso to oversee a multi-university effort to produce more scientists and engineers who can develop new alternative energy sources and ways to increase energy efficiency. Heidi Taboada, Ph.D., assistant professor of industrial, manufacturing and systems engineering, is the principal investigator of the BuildinG a Regional Energy and Educational Network (BGREEN) project.

Interdisciplinary teams from UTEP, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Texas State University-San Marcos, and New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM, will work with the USDA and agricultural agencies to prepare students and graduates who can develop efficient renewable energy sources, incorporate biomass conversion, improve feedstock logistics, optimize supply chains and processes, and develop green infrastructure as they enhance the competitiveness of our nation in the global economy. “Demand for professionals with sustainable energy knowledge is increasing as employers need graduates who can better respond to energy challenges in all professional and business contexts,” Taboada says. “This demand also will create green-collar jobs in the industrial sector and in new technology fields and will put our country on track to a sustainable, low-carbon energy future.”

The program will help place student interns and train graduate students at sites in Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, as well as Panama City, Panama. Taboada will work alongside her UTEP colleagues: co-principal investigator Jose Espiritu, Ph.D., assistant professor of industrial, manufacturing and systems engineering; William Hargrove, Ph.D., director of the Center for Environmental Resource Management; Salvador Hernandez, Ph.D., and Shane Walker, Ph.D., assistant professors of civil engineering; and Juan Noveron, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry.

Jason Ross, P.E. Leads HMMH Rail Group

2011-11-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

Harris Miller Miller & Hanson Inc. (HMMH) has announced the promotion of Jason Ross, P.E., to the position of director of transit noise and vibration. In his new role, Ross is responsible for leading the firm's transit noise and vibration services practice group, managing and supporting projects, business development activities, and resource allocation. Ross has previously held the positions of principal engineer and senior consultant at HMMH.

Ross’ project experience includes environmental assessments and impact statements, compliance testing, development of noise and vibration data measurement systems, analyses of vibration-sensitive equipment, public meetings participation, course instruction, and expert testimony. Ross currently manages the update of the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Noise and Vibration Impact Assessment Guidance Manual and preliminary engineering of noise and vibration mitigation for the MBTA Green Line Extension Project. Ross has a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, a Master’s degree in acoustics and is a registered Professional Engineer in Massachusetts and Texas. Ross also serves on HMMH’s board of directors.

“I am very excited to provide Jason an opportunity to expand his corporate leadership to one of our most exciting practice areas.” said Mary Ellen Eagan, President. “Jason’s combination of solid engineering skills and consulting expertise will position us well in this dynamic field.”

Dagher Engineering Projects Featured in Architectural Record

2011-11-06T07:44:00.000-08:00

Architectural Record magazine's special commemorative issue "The Death and Life of a Great American City: New York 2001-2011," honors New York City as a 21st-century design capital. In a section titled, "The City Reimagined: The Future of New York," Record's editors name the top 12 projects that are spearheading the transformation of the cityscape today. Dagher Engineering, based in New York, was involved with five of these projects, including:

Fresh Kills Park

Dagher Engineering designed a 770 square-foot photovoltaic arrayshade system and battery enclosure as the lead electrical and plumbing design consultant for the North Park Schmul entrance.

West 57th Street

Dagher Engineering is providing sustainable strategies and design as the lead MEP consultant for the Durst Organziation's latest cutting-edge venture with BIG.

Hudson Park & Boulevard

Dagher Engineering is helping transform the area from a desolate industrial neighborhood to a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly mixed-use district as the lead MEP consultant for the green center of the new Hudson Yards, the Hudson Park & Boulevard.

The BAM Cultural District

Dagher Engineering provided the MEP design for the Visual Arts Plaza and the streetscape of this new cultural district around the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Governor's Island Park & Public Spaces

Dagher Engineering is the lead MEP consultant for a visionary scheme for 87 acres of public space on Governors Island that is expected to generate a small scale construction boom.

WSP SELLS Acquires WAZ Engineering

2011-11-06T07:31:00.000-08:00

WSP SELLS announces the acquisition of WAZ Engineering, PC by the firm. WAZ Engineering provides consulting and engineering design to public and private clients throughout the Southeast and specializes in hydraulic engineering ranging from flood studies, stormwater management, and drainage design to stream and wetland restoration.

WAZ Engineering Principal Amy Wazenegger, PE, CFM will lead the WSP SELLS Water Resources Group from the Cary, NC office. Wazenegger formed WAZ Engineering in 2005 to provide hydraulic engineering services while encouraging a healthy work life for employees with an emphasis on long-term environmental sustainability. Prior to starting her own company, she worked for an international engineering firm and the NCDOT Hydraulics Unit and has more than 13 years of experience in the water resources field. She has participated in the hydrologic study and design for a variety of roadway and highway improvement projects. In addition to her work with hydraulics projects, Wazenegger has participated in the study, analysis, design, construction, and monitoring of stream restoration and mitigation projects for a variety of clients and has an in-depth knowledge and understanding of federal, state, and local environmental regulations. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Engineering from North Carolina State University, is a licensed Professional Engineer in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, and is a Certified Floodplain Manager.

Headquartered in Westchester County, NY, WSP SELLS has provided bridge design/inspection, transportation engineering, development infrastructure, water resources, land surveying/GPS, photogrammetric mapping, and GIS services to public and private sector clients since 1925. With a 230-person staff, WSP SELLS is part of WSP Group, a 9,000-person global design, engineering, and management consultancy.

KSA Engineers Launches New Portfolio of Environmental Services

2011-11-06T07:19:00.000-08:00

KSA Engineers has introduced Environmental Services, which offers an extensive set of environmental-related services and solutions. Traditional environmental projects that KSA has completed include environmental site assessments, site cleanups, air permitting, and waste management/disposal. This new list of services will allow the firm to work with clients through environmental permitting and compliance for additional types of capital improvement projects. The new portfolio includes a range of services beyond permitting, which include developing biological assessments of habitats to avoid impacting endangered species, delineation of wetlands, wetland permitting support, and conducting overall field assessments and documentation required for a project's National Environmental Policy Act review.

"We are extremely excited about the opportunity to diversify our services and provide our clients with more options for their environmental work," says Lanny Buck, project manager at KSA. "We look forward to expanding our range of services in the environmental area." The introduction of Environmental Services marks another step in KSA's strategy of strengthening its position as a provider of professional services to municipalities, airports, industry, and the oil and gas industry.

KSA Engineers provides a broad range of consulting, management, engineering, planning, surveying, and construction services. Founded in 1978, the firm has grown to over 150 employees located in eight offices throughout Texas. For more information, visit www.ksaeng.com.

METRO Takes Design-Build Approach with Light Rail Extension

2011-11-06T07:02:00.000-08:00

Phoenix, Arizona's METRO light rail will take advantage of the competitive market and gain the early insight of a contractor with a design-build delivery method for its 3.1-mile Central Mesa extension. This decision is a departure from METRO’s typical project delivery approach of design-bid-build, but it works in favor of building a quality product in this economy and in a way that supports the local business community.

“The challenging economy presents us with an opportunity to think creatively about how we move projects forward,” said METRO CEO Steve Banta. “A quality design/builder can help us navigate towards a successful project that will best serve the neighboring community and the public dollar. It will also benefit the project’s timeline.”

A strong benefit of the design-build approach is that the construction contractor will come on board early to work directly with the designer to build plans that are workable for both parties. Contractor expertise will also help to build a construction schedule that meets the needs of the agency, project, and community. “The City of Mesa supports the design-build option for the Central Mesa light rail extension,” Mesa Councilmember and METRO Board Vice Chairman Dennis Kavanaugh said. “It will advance the schedule and put Arizonans to work.”

The Central Mesa project team is now finalizing preliminary engineering. These plans will be delivered to a design-build team for further development in spring 2012. A Request for Qualifications, to initiate the Design-Build procurement, has been issued . Future project milestones remain intact. Utility relocation will begin in spring 2012 with the project to be complete in 2016.

The Central Mesa project is a 3.1-mile light rail extension that will travel east from the current end-of-line through downtown Mesa on Main Street to Mesa Drive. The extension will provide East Valley residents with greater connection to the regional transit system and help support the growth of downtown Mesa. For more information, visitwww.metrolightrail.org/centralmesa.

METRO develops and operates the region’s high-capacity transit system. The first 20-mile light rail line opened December 2008. METRO serves an average of 40,000 riders each weekday while also planning for six extensions that will create a 57-mile system by 2031. METRO had 1,258,711 total boardings in October, an eight percent increase over October 2010 and the highest in the system’s history. For more information, visit www.metrolightrail.org.

Editor's note: See our feature story on the METRO light rail system at http://www.progressiveengineer.com/features/lightRail.htm

Sixth LEED Professional Joins French & Parello

2011-11-06T06:38:00.000-08:00

Modern technology may owe ecology an apology (a la Alan M. Eddison), but not the engineering firm French & Parrello Associates (FPA). FPA has recently welcomed Amin Gomaa, Freehold, its sixth LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) accredited professional. Before joining French & Parrello, Gomaa, an electrical engineer, worked in power distribution design, photovoltaic solar systems design, sustainable design, and project cost estimation, among other areas, in the United States and internationally. Gomaa, who earned an Electrician Diploma from Penn Foster Career School, Pennsylvania, holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Alexandria University, Egypt.

Gomaa and the rest of staff at FPA have worked on renewable energy projects from ground mount, carport and rooftop solar installations to hydro electric and windmill energy projects, all of which are part of FPA’s “go green” initiative. Argo Parrello, P.E., the president of FPA, says “We believe that a sustainable future begins right here in our own offices whether its recycling, using hybrid company vehicles, giving all employees re-usable company coffee mugs and re-usable water bottles to ensure bottleless water coolers, using an energy provider that uses 20 percent renewable energy, or migrating to a paperless office. FPA is committed to a better future for everyone’s children and grandchildren inside and outside our offices.”

FPA, has corporate headquarters in Wall, NJ and branch offices in Hackettstown, NJ; Mullica Hill, NJ; and Bethlehem, PA. The firm offers services in land development, land surveying, landscape architecture, geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering, construction phases, material testing, building design, telecommunications, transportation engineering, traffic engineering, water resources, and renewable energy resources. For further information, visit www.fpaengineers.com.

RenewABILITY Energy

2011-10-22T19:12:00.000-07:00

Power in a drainpipe: A business thrives around a
novel device that recovers heat from water
flowing down the drain

RenewABILITY Energy’s CEO Gerald Van Decker
with his invention

George Hayden, Jr. lives with his wife and four young children in a 4200-square-foot two-story craftsman traditional house near Mountain Top, PA. When I ventured to their abode in a new upscale wooded development, his wife welcomed me and asked if I wanted coffee. But while that added to the ambience and made me feel at home, this wasn’t a social visit. I was here to check out the plumbing and see a unique energy-saving device known as a Power-Pipe made by RenewABILITY Energy.

“This house was done as energy-efficiently as we could within limits,” Hayden told me as we walked into the mechanical area downstairs. They have a Rinnai Hot Way natural-gas-fired on-demand water heater, also known as a tankless water heater. “This with that makes a big difference,” he says in pointing to the water heater and then the Power-Pipe.

With headquarters and a manufacturing facility in Waterloo, Ontario (Canada), west of Toronto, RenewABILITY Energy has made its mark in so-called drain water heat recovery (DWHR) technology. Made of copper, the Power-Pipe DWHR system is a double-walled heat exchanger that recovers heat energy from the wastewater flowing down your household drain and uses it to warm incoming cold water. They sell it through retailers such as Sears and Home Depot and distributors.

This takes advantage of the fact that nearly one-third of the energy you consume in your home goes to heat water for everyday household tasks, but 90 percent of that energy runs down the drain, mostly in your shower.   In North America alone, this loss amounts to about $40 billion a year.

Single-family homes as well as multi-unit residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings can take advantage of the Power-Pipe to reduce energy use and water heating costs. Joel Murray, technical support manager at RenewABILITY Energy, reports, “The residential sector has been the major market focus. We have had moderate success with the commercial and industrial sectors. We do some applications for larger more industrial or commercial applications where they manifold several Power-Pipes together.”

The Power-Pipe is based on a principle known as the falling film effect. Water falling through a vertical pipe doesn’t run down the center of the pipe but instead clings to its inside wall, creating a thin film that maximizes the Power-Pipe’s ability to recover heat energy.

Multiple coils of rectangular copper tube wrap together in parallel around a central copper drainpipe. Hot water flowing down the drain transfers its heat to incoming cold water moving up the coils in a counterflow mode. Having multiple coils allows for adequate flow with no discernible water pressure loss. Falling film heat exchangers have actually been around for decades, but previous designs consisted of a single coil wrapped around the drainpipe, restricting flow, or used a non-counterflow design, which reduced heat transfer performance.

The drainpipe and Power-Pipe have the same nominal diameter, with the Power-Pipe installing vertically. Typical residential drainpipes are either 2 or 3 inches in diameter, and the Power-Pipe comes in diameters of 2, 3, 4, and 6 inches. The preferred configuration for providing maximum energy savings plumbs the home's main water line through the Power-Pipe. A second option is to plumb cold water through the Power-Pipe to the water heater only. A third configuration consists of running cold water through the Power-Pipe to the cold side of the shower fixture only.

Accommodates Growing Family
George Hayden built his new house in 2010 to accommodate his growing family and wanted to go with renewable energy as much as possible. It has four bathrooms, three tied into the Power-Pipe in a three-inch drain line downstairs. The outlet from the Power-Pipe feeds to the hot water line upstairs to supplement the water heater. In keeping with the renewable energy theme, they plan to add a 10-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system to the house.

George Hayden installed a Power-Pipe in his
new house to save on utility costs.

In their previous house in Hazleton, PA, the Haydens had a traditional electric tank water heater and two showers. Their gas bill runs about $60-70 a month now compared to an electric bill of roughly $100 a month before. The only drawback they notice is a small restriction on the cold water supply going to more than one of the showers because it is being diverted to the Power-Pipe.

RenewABILITY Energy claims that using a Power-Pipe can raise incoming supply water temperature from 50F to 77F and reduce overall household water heating costs by up to 40 percent with a payback of 2 to 6 years. A significant potential for energy and cost savings often comes in industrial applications because of the large volume of heated fluids consumed. The Power-Pipe can recover up to 70 percent of waste fluid heat and use it to preheat fluids before they enter a primary water heater. And institutions can recover up to 60 percent of that wasted heat energy with a Power-Pipe.

Gerald Van Decker invented the Power-Pipe and founded RenewABILITY Energy in 2000 and serves as the company’s CEO. Before that, he worked at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), where he engaged in project management and R&D activities in active solar technologies. Van Decker has a Master's degree in mechanical engineering and Bachelor's degree in systems design engineering, both from the University of Waterloo in Canada. And he is a Professional Engineer registered in the province of Ontario.

RenewABILITY Energy has about 20 employees, including 3 engineers. A mechanical engineer, Joel Murray has worked there five years. “This being a small company, my roles are diverse. I do everything from technical support to designing and sizing systems for larger commercial and industrial applications to process improvements on the technical manufacturing process,” he explains. They custom design Power-Pipes for larger flows and complex plumbing designs, while smaller systems are standard. They do energy recovery analysis to show customers the potential with their hot water. And they design tools to streamline the manufacturing process, which becomes more important as production ramps up.

The company does all the Power-Pipe manufacturing itself. They use copper DWV (drain, waste, and vent) tubing for the inner drainpipe and Type L or Type K copper for the outer coils, silver soldering or brazing the parts. “The main part is wrapping the coils. The rest is brazing the coils into a manifold with a silver phosphorous alloy using an oxyacetylene flame. It’s a very manual process,” Murray says. They purchase the copper tubing in standard round form from a copper mill in the U.S. and form it into its rectangular shape using a proprietary process.

According to Murray, RenewABILITY Energy sells Power-Pipes “all around the world. Since we’re located in Ontario, the biggest market obviously is Ontario. We also sell a good number of units all across Canada and the U.S. We sold some in a couple of different countries in Europe -- Bulgaria, France. Also Mexico. It’s becoming a more well known technology.”

Education Plays a Big Role
But even with this success, the company is still ramping up, and they find themselves in a constant education mode, Murray says. “It’s not a standard technology in the home, so we go around to engineering and architecture firms and designers and offer programs to learn about this technology. While it is a very simple technology, drain water is not something people think about for saving energy. Once they use that water, it flows down the drain and out of sight and mind. We’re there to show them how much energy actually is flowing down the drain.” They’ve developed courses for the American Institute of Architects and the U.S. Green Building Council, and they go to their chapters giving presentations.

Murray adds, “I was involved in designing an enclosed working display where we can create a hot water stream and a cold water stream and actually have one of our units in place that shows how much heat can be picked up.” They take this to trade shows.

Is it fun? “Oh, definitely,” Murray replies. “Especially during the education and design phase where people get that ‘aha’ moment that the potential is there. Green technology is one of the hottest markets right now, and there’s a lot of focus being put on it from many different perspectives.”

It helps that the Power-Pipe qualifies for financial incentives under numerous government and power utility energy efficiency programs. Murray says, “Utilities and energy companies have really backed the technology and offered aggressive rebate programs to their customers. That’s been the biggest surprise. They have programs for homebuilders across Canada and America.” Main examples have been Minnesota Power and utilities in Iowa and California.

Hayden’s Power-Pipe works in conjunction
with this gas-powered tankless water heater

George Hayden discovered the Power-Pipe when RenewABILITY Energy rented space in a building in Hazleton that George J. Hayden Electric-Communications worked on. They have their U.S. office there. “I wanted to try their product,” he recalls. Hayden’s plumber followed the directions for installing the Power-Pipe and found it installed easily.

It’s not surprising that Hayden would embrace an energy-saving device considering his company’s direction in recent years. His father George J. Hayden started George J. Hayden Electric-Communications in 1975 as an electrical contracting company serving residential, commercial, and industrial markets. George F. Hayden, the son, serves as vice president of operations. In recent years, the firm has gotten into renewable energy, mainly installing solar PV panels and maintaining the electrical components of wind farms such as substations and transformers – the area around Scranton, PA has seen several wind farms go up in recent years.

With companies like this promoting the Power-Pipe and RenewABILITY Energy engaged in its extensive educating and marketing effort, we may all have a Power-Pipe in our home some day, and drain water will figure prominently in the energy mix.

For more information on the Power-Pipe and RenewABILITY Energy, visitwww.renewability.com

Field Electrical Engineer Needed in York, PA

2011-08-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

Progressive Engineer Magazine has posted the following new job opening in its Engineer's Job Market. For more information and listings, visit www.ProgressiveEngineer.com.

Field Electrical Engineer

Graham Engineering Corporation (GEC), a leader in the blow molding industry, has an immediate opening for an experienced, hands-on Field Electrical Engineer at our York, PA location. This position plays a key role in the development of opportunities in retrofits and upgraded controls and the related design, installation, service, and company-wide coordination of building the upgraded controls and retrofit business. This is an excellent growth opportunity for the individual interested in a broad range of responsibilities, including developing business opportunities, backed by a successful and reputable corporation. GEC offers exciting career opportunities to individuals with strong values and a desire to achieve and excel to their fullest potential. We believe an organization is only as strong as the people it employs.

Responsibilities include:

Keep abreast of overall market trends and identify market segments for which controls upgrades present cost effective sales and service opportunities.
Analyze competitive technologies and ways in which GEC can produce higher quality and more cost effective retrofits to existing equipment.
Provide engineering design services and assist in creating conceptual designs and help prepare specifications for new development projects.
Visit customer sites and evaluate machinery for retrofits and upgrades.
Write and prepare viable proposals, specifications, estimates and quotes for rebuilds, retrofits and upgrades, including scope and scheduling.
Create schematics, detail drawings, assemblies, sub-assemblies, BOM’s and layouts, using CAD, and perform required analysis to ensure the satisfaction of all project specifications and needed for the procurement, manufacture and assembly of components.
Visit customer sites to install retrofits and upgrades. Read, interpret and make changes to control system software installed in customer equipment.
Provide outside technical support of machinery as needed, including service calls, trouble shooting for retrofit installations.
Program logical machine functions using an IEC61131 program language and design HMI interface using a combination of visual Basic and canned HMI tools.
Schedule design reviews with Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering to review progress of design activities and to solicit input and suggestions.
Assist the assigned Project manager to ensure that all Engineering Documentation for components are released in a timely manner to meet the requirements of the Project Schedule and budget.
Work with the Sales Department in determining the viability of proposed retrofits to existing equipments.
Work with Purchasing to develop vendor specifications for out-sourced materials.
Provide technical support to all departments during procurement, assembly, testing and final acceptance of equipment.
Assist Technical Documentation Department in the preparation of all drawings, specifications and specific operating procedures required in properly supporting product in the field.
Work with vendors, consultants and outside resources, as needed.

Job Qualifications include:

Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or equivalent experience.
Minimum of 2 years machine design experience.
Proficient use of related computer software, including MS Office and 2D CAD experience.
Demonstrated understanding of standard machine programming languages including ladder, structured text, function block and some HMI design exposure.
Effective oral and written communication skills
Strong understanding of Mechanical and Electrical/control Engineering
Available to travel 25 – 50% of time.
Available for customer site evaluations and installations during off hours.
Physical and medical standards for this position must be met by passing a physical examination by a Company approved physician.

GEC offers its employees a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package. We offer medical, dental, disability and life/accident insurance, flexible spending accounts, 401(k) plan, pension plan, educational assistance, paid holidays and vacation time. For immediate consideration forward your resume tohr@grahamengineering.com.

Progressive Engineer Magazine Announces a New Service

2011-08-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

Let Progressive Engineer
Write for Your Organization

By now, hopefully, you’ve read a sampling of articles on our website that show the cool jobs engineers have and the technology they apply. We write these in a style that reveals the personal side of engineers and explains the designs they create in an easy-to-read fashion that laypeople can understand. Progressive Engineer can write a similar article for your organization, one that takes the form of a company profile, a case history on a successful project, or a profile of one of your engineers. You can take advantage of this whether you’re an industrial company, consulting engineering firm, or engineering college.

You might consider engaging us on a long-term basis to write a series of articles for your organization. From a marketing perspective, this will portray you as experts in your field, educate people about your services and capabilities, and serve as an inexpensive form of advertising, especially when compared with print ads in trade magazines.

Either I can visit your company or project site personally and handle the writing, or we can call upon our network of freelance writers around the country and find a writer in your area. In the latter case, the writer would work under our direction in crafting an article that fits our editorial slant.

In this age of social media, your article will reach many venues and wide audiences. For starters, logically enough, it will be posted on our website for viewing like any other story we publish, and it will remain there indefinitely -- several of our articles have stayed online for years and continue to draw many readers. You can set up a link from your website to the story. We will also post it on our Engineering News blog, meaning readers can find it on our Google Blogger site. We post a notice of any new story on our Facebook and Twitter pages. We also post it on our RSS feed, and we can set up an RSS feed from your website using Google’s FeedBurner program. This means anyone that subscribes to your feed will see the article.

If you’re not familiar with RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, they’re those funny little orange icons you commonly see on websites (some in the business call them chicklets). Essentially, an RSS feed notifies you when information has been added to a website you frequent and sends the information to you to view. You can set this up for any website that offers the feed and for as many websites as you like. It saves you the trouble of searching your favorite websites for any new information added since you last visited.

But there’s more. We can place your article in print trade magazines as well. We handle not only the research, writing, and photography but also working with magazine editors in publishing the articles. I have worked extensively with companies and trade publications in doing this, and some of the stories you see in Progressive Engineer have appeared in print magazines in various forms. Here’s a partial list of magazines I have had articles published in:

Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration News
American City & County
Blue Ridge Regional Business Journal
College Planning & Management
Compressed Air
Construction
Engineered Systems
Graduating Engineer
Heating/Piping/AirConditioning
Hydraulics & Pneumatics
IEEE Spectrum
Mechanical Engineering
New Hampshire Highways
NISH Workplace
Permanent Buildings & Foundations
Popular Mechanics
Popular Science
Power Transmission Design
Process Heating
Public Works
Ski Area Management
Store Equipment & Design
Today’s A/C & Refrigeration News
World Wastes

Engineering firms: As a special bonus, if you hire us to write an article for you, you’ll receive a listing in our Engineering Firm Directory at no extra cost. This is one of the most heavily visited sections of our website. If you already have a paid listing, your next annual fee for that will be deducted from the payment for your article. The same policy applies to engineering schools that want a listing in our Online Engineering Education Programs directory. And any organization that signs on with us will also get to have their news releases posted on our Engineering News blog, another highly visited page on our website. This makes for a complete marketing package.

For more information or to discuss your needs, contact Tom Gibson at 570-713-4812 or tom@progressiveengineer.com. Visit our website at www.ProgressiveEngineer.com.

Green Data Center Showcases Techniques to Reduce Computer Energy Use

2011-07-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

Orange Lead the Way

The Syracuse University Green Data Center uses novel techniques such as trigeneration with microturbines and absorption chillers to reduce energy use, creating a model its designers hope to replicate with other data centers as computer energy consumption soars.

By Tom Gibson, P.E.

Cooling towers on the roof give a hint of the operations that take place within the nondescript data center building.

On an overcast February day with snow on the ground and slush on the roads, I turn left and make my way through the South Campus at Syracuse University in upstate New York, about a mile from the main campus. I could’ve turned right for a tour of the main campus and a peek inside the famous Carrier Dome, where the Syracuse Orangemen play football and basketball, but that would have to wait until later. I come to a nondescript, gray, nearly windowless building, and I know I’m at the right place because I see cooling towers on the roof.

This is the new Green Data Center (GDC) at Syracuse, completed in December 2009 and used by the university as its primary computing facility. They design buildings like this to blend in with their surroundings and locate them in innocuous places. But that belies the mission that takes place inside and the unique engineering project behind this groundbreaking building.

Mark Weldon, executive director of corporate relations at Syracuse, greets me at the door and escorts me inside. “This is the greenest data center in the world,” he proclaims. He tells how their previous data center was housed in a 100-year-old building that had become too outdated to continue using.

In explaining how the project came about, Weldon says they partnered with IBM. “We wanted to start something big.” IBM responded by challenging them to design and build a data center that would cut energy use in half, and they gave them two years to do it. “With that timeframe, we couldn’t invent anything new. We put existing technology together in a unique way.” Kevin Noble, manager of engineering at Syracuse University for campus design, planning, and construction, joined us and commented, “This project has been one of the most interesting and complex ones I’ve ever done.”

As the fruit of this effort, the $12.4 million, 12,000-square-foot facility contains specially configured infrastructure space for a power plant, including mechanical and electrical equipment to run the building, and 6,000 square feet of primary raised-floor data center space for computers and servers.

Data centers such as this have taken on added importance with our society’s ever-growing computer use. Roger Schmidt, chief engineer for data center energy efficiency in the Server Group at IBM, states, “Storage has increased by about 69 times over the last decade, and servers have increased by about 10 times. It’s a huge explosion of IT equipment in data centers, and that contributes to a big power increase.” Compared to a typical commercial building, data centers consume 30 times the energy per square foot on average.

The GDC actually came about through a collaboration between Syracuse, IBM, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Schmidt says IBM had worked with Syracuse for many years, holding meetings with the provost, engineering school, and data center operators. At first it was just about enhancing the old data center by putting in better equipment and best practices. When building a new one entered the picture, IBM donated $5 million in design services and computer equipment, and Syracuse got $2 million from NYSERDA.

Noble and his staff of five engineers guided the project, picking the design team and contractors and helping evaluate different options. One staff engineer, Jim Blum, served as project manager, and another one, Alex Medvedev, a mechanical engineer, served as the commissioning agent.

Fast-Track Design-Build Effort
The project consisted of two parallel design-build efforts that eventually merged. BHP Energy and GEM, Inc. handled design and construction of the power plant portion of the project, which included a trigeneration system and the incoming electrical distribution. Headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, GEM is a large mechanical-electrical construction firm, and BHP Energy is a design firm owned by GEM. BHP is headquartered in Hudson, Ohio, a Toledo suburb, and has offices in Toledo and Saratoga Springs, New York. The data center building itself and architectural design fell under VIP Structures in Syracuse. They retained an MEP (mechanical-electrical-plumbing) engineering firm, Towne Engineering of Utica, New York. Taking this approach, the team actually built the facility in 188 days to meet the deadline.

Dave Blair of BHP Energy explains the operation of the microturbines during a tour of the facility.

In reflecting on that, David Blair, president of BHP Energy and an electrical engineer, says, “It was probably the high point of my career. It was one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever been part of. I’m not a big fan of meetings, but the meetings at Syracuse were something I looked forward to. It was always an exciting experience because you had synergy when you bring a group of people together and you give them a goal of going beyond what’s been done before.”

Venturing into the power plant section of the building, Weldon took me into a room containing the backbone of BHP's integrated power system: 12 Capstone microturbines arranged in two rows of six for electric power generation. He explained that most data centers operate from the electrical grid and have diesel generators for backup power. “We can operate off the grid and use the grid as a backup.”

Gas-powered microturbines generate electrical power and heat for hot water and cooling.

A microturbine is a combustion turbine engine that has come into vogue over the last 10 years for stationary applications as a form of distributed generation. Fueled by natural gas, the 12 microturbines here can generate all the power needed, enabling the data center to operate completely off-grid.

Capstone manufactures microturbines at two facilities in Chatsworth, Calif. and Van Nuys in the Los Angeles area and offers them in 30kW, 65kW, and 200kW sizes. They design and manufacture the electronic equipment, including generators and PLCs (programmable logic controllers) that control their machines. Their microturbines operate on a variety of fuels, including natural gas, biogas, flare gas, diesel, propane, and kerosene.

For this project, Capstone developed a new turbine product in six months, the Hybrid UPS (uninterruptible power supply) based on the C65, which produces 65 kilowatts of electricity. According to Steve Gillette, VP, business development at Capstone, “We can simply run the microturbines when the electric rates are high. It’s really a good match for a data center. We can now save money every day compared to the traditional UPS and backup diesel genset, which only adds value in the case of an infrequent outage.”

One component of Capstone’s microturbine design that makes them viable is an air bearing, which enables the turbine to spin at 96,000 rpm. This has a foil shaped like an airplane wing, and as the shaft starts to rotate, the foil pulls the ambient air in to create a thin film, and then it pushes that foil out slightly, so the shaft floats on air, minimizing friction and eliminating the need for lubrication. (Other turbines like those in jet engines use traditional oil-lubricated bearings because they have to support large mechanical loads.)

But even with this, Weldon points out what he considers the greatest area of energy savings in the data center. “When you get power from a utility, there are transmission losses.” Normally you have to convert high-voltage AC power from the grid to low-voltage DC power for computers. The GDC has its own DC sub-distribution system, with grid power routed through electronics in the microturbines. “Generating our own DC power saves about 10 percent of our energy use.”

Multiple Outputs Boost Efficiency
As good as they sound, microturbines convert only about 30 percent of the fuel energy to electricity, explaining why engineers like to capture the waste heat they generate for use in cogeneration applications to improve efficiency. In this case, they went a step further and employed trigeneration -- combined cooling, heat, and power (CCHP). As a distributor of Capstone turbines, BHP Energy has developed its ReliaFlex Power System, and this marked the first use of CCHP with uninterruptible power. As Gillette remarks, “We can get up to 80 percent total energy conversion efficiency compared to the electric utility grid that’s only 33 percent. You get two or three outputs from one fuel input.”

Driven by waste heat from the microturbines, absorption chillers chill water to cool the servers in the data center.

The 585F exhaust stream from each microturbine is collected in a common duct, and that flows to two heat-recovery modules, one for hot water and another for absorption chillers that make chilled water. These modules use conventional tube-and-shell heat exchangers.

I get to see this as we proceed into a room with the chillers and heat exchangers, where I am treated to a mechanical engineer’s dream full of brightly color-coded pipes and pumps. Two chillers generate 300 tons of cooling, 100 for the data center and 200 for the building next door, a 100,000-square-foot research and office facility known simply as 621 Skytop (its address). The system generates enough cooling that it could be used in warmer climates. Data centers need air conditioning most of the time to cool their computers and data servers. The chillers can chill water to as low as 45F, but currently they’re using 67F water for cooling both the servers in the data center and the space in the building next door.

Absorption refrigerators are a popular alternative to the standard four-stage (compressor, condenser, expansion valve, evaporator) vapor-compression variety where a source of waste heat is available to drive the cooling. The technology has been around since the 1970s. BHP Energy chose Thermax USA double-effect absorption chillers based on favorable experience with them in past projects.

Kevin Noble joined us again and explained just how you get cooling from heat in an absorption chiller. “It’s all magic,” he jokes. I would later pull my old thermodynamics textbook from the shelf to brush up on phase diagrams and refrigeration cycles so I could understand what he said. It seems an absorber, generator, and heat exchanger essentially replace the compressor found in a vapor-compression cycle. The chillers use water as the refrigerant, operating on the principal that water in a vacuum evaporates at low temperature. The vacuum is maintained by circulating a lithium bromide solution that absorbs the vapor from the evaporating water. The waste heat from the microturbine exhaust re-concentrates the solution by releasing the water vapor, which is then re-condensed in the cooling tower on the roof before passing through the expansion valve and on to the evaporator. With no moving parts other than water pumps, these chillers prove reliable and quiet.

Chilled water from the chillers is piped under the floor to racks of servers the size of refrigerators in the data center. Weldon showed me a rear door on a server rack with a heat exchanger in it that looked like a typical radiator coil with fins on it. The servers have fans that blow air horizontally outward through the doors. The cooled air then recirculates to cool the room and ultimately the servers.

Doug Hague, communications technician, peers inside a server cooled by IBM’s Rear Door cooling door.

This is IBM’s Rear Door Heat exchanger cooling door, made by Coolcentric. These remove heat more efficiently than conventional air conditioning. Sensors monitor server temperatures to determine how much cooling each door should provide; the environment can be controlled in each rack of servers.

Exhaust from the microturbines also flows through two Cain heat exchangers in the room with the absorption chillers to produce hot water. Noble says, “Depending on season and load, we can use that hot water to run the perimeter heat in the adjacent building, preheat the outside air used for ventilation, and produce domestic hot water. There are very few heat loads in the data center.”

Mark Weldon shows off batteries that start the microturbines and provide backup power.

Next, we went into a room containing 44 tons of sealed of batteries that augment the turbines. They start the turbines and provide emergency backup power in the unlikely event that all 12 turbines and the utility grid fail to provide enough electricity to maintain operations. The 300-volt battery banks generate at least 17 minutes of full data center power, permitting an orderly shutdown of computers in the event of a calamity.

Automatic Control System Does the Thinking
An automated control system complete with computers and PLCs decides which form of power to use in the GDC. In normal operation, power comes from the electrical grid, and the microturbines act as a current source with their output set to match the thermal requirement imposed by cooling the servers. With the loss of grid power, the microturbines kick on and act as a voltage source with the load setting the current. According to Noble, “With the utility rate structure in our area, it doesn’t make economic or environmental sense to operate the microturbines purely to generate power. You have to be able to use at least a portion of the thermal energy from their exhaust.”

In walking around the data center, Noble notes, “This is a lights-out data center. It has no staff and is typically controlled remotely from someone’s laptop computer.” He adds, “We have extensively instrumented this facility. The ultimate vision is to have it fully automated.”

Indeed, Mark Weldon showed me sensors in power strips along the doorway of a server rack, and the servers themselves have sensors. He estimates they have about 30,000 sensors for measuring temperature, amperage, voltage, and computing capacity (chip load), among other things.

But with all this technology employed in a quest to save energy and increase the efficiency of data centers, one question begs: Did they consider the use of renewable energy? When I posed this question to Noble, he replied, “We are actually considering supplementing our DC power system with solar panels. The adjacent building has a flat roof that’s over 75,000 square feet.”

The GDC is gradually coming online as equipment is being moved into it. Meanwhile, IBM uses the GDC as a showcase and research center for trying new technologies. According to Schmidt, “The idea is to deploy some of these technologies in our clients around the world.” He adds, “We’re working with the mechanical and electrical engineering departments at Syracuse University on software tools that will help our clients design better data centers and help their legacy data centers improve on energy efficiency.”

Hopefully, the creative thinking at the beginning of the project and the hustle to meet a tight deadline will pay off in many ways for years to come. While Syracuse University will benefit from reduced energy use in its computer operations, other data centers will as well as time goes on.

And now for that tour of the main campus and the Carrier Dome...

Don Leo Named Associate Vice President for Research in the National Capital Region

2011-06-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

Virginia Tech has named Donald Leo associate vice president for research in the National Capital Region. The announcement was made by Jim Bohland, vice president and executive director of National Capital Region Operations. Leo will be located at the new Virginia Tech Research Center – Arlington and will be responsible for developing and implementing a strategic direction for research throughout the National Capital Region by integrating the university and its community of researchers in the Ballston facility with government agencies as well as private firms in the region.

“Don’s experience and success in developing a research and development ecology with Rolls Royce and other partners through the founding of the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing demonstrates his skills in creating new and exciting collaborations across multiple sectors," Bohland said.

Leo is a professor of mechanical engineering who has been at Virginia Tech since 1998, serving as the associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Engineering from 2007 to 2011. From 2005 to 2007 he was a program manager in the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency.

During his time as associate dean, Leo oversaw several initiatives in research and graduate studies for the College of Engineering. He was the lead at Virginia Tech for creation of the Commonwealth Center for Aerospace Propulsion Systems and the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing as part of a five-year, $14.6 million investment by the state. These funds will be used to support students, faculty, faculty hiring, and the development of new laboratories dedicated to aerospace and manufacturing research.

As associate dean, Leo also instituted several mentoring programs for junior faculty for early career awards, and worked with the departments to develop the first fall recruiting event in the college for prospective graduate students. Research expenditures grew from $107 million to $134 million over the four year period that he was associate dean in the College of Engineering.

His research expertise is the synthesis, modeling, and control of active material systems, with particular interest in the field of electroactive polymers. In 2007 he authored the textbook "Engineering Analysis of Smart Material Systems," published by John Wiley and Sons. He is also the author of more than 200 papers, 80 of which have been published in archival publications.

Leo earned a bachelor of science in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and both a master of science degree and a doctor of philosophy in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of Buffalo.

Virginia Tech has fostered a growing partnership with the greater metropolitan Washington, D.C. community since 1969. Today, the university’s presence in the National Capital Region includes graduate programs and research centers in Alexandria, Arlington, Falls Church, Leesburg, Manassas, and Middleburg. In addition to supporting the university’s teaching and research mission, Virginia Tech’s National Capital Region has established collaborations with local and federal agencies, businesses, and other institutions of higher education.

Diane Baxter of GZA GeoEnvironmental Promoted to Senior Project Manager

2011-06-26T08:47:00.000-07:00

GZA GeoEnvironmental, an environmental and geotechnical consulting firm, has announced that Diane Baxter, Ph.D., P.E., LEED AP has been promoted to senior project manager at GZA GeoEnvironmental’s Providence, Rhode Island office.

A resident of Cranston, Rhode Island, Baxter joined GZA in 2000 as a geotechnical engineer for a variety of geotechnical, marine, and environmental engineering projects. She has acted as field engineer, project engineer, and project manager and has experience providing foundation recommendations, geotechnical site investigations, construction monitoring, earth support system design, seepage analysis, liquefaction analysis, and slope stability analyses.

Prior to joining GZA, Baxter worked for Metcalf & Eddy in Wakefield, Massachusetts and James K. Mitchell in Blacksburg, Virginia on a variety of geotechnical and environmental consulting projects. Baxter has managed geotechnical aspects of recent projects including Waterplace Luxury Residences, Cape Wind Offshore Wind Farm, Deepwater Wind RI Offshore Wind Farm, RI Hospital Bridge Building, Roger Williams Park Zoo Elephant Barn, and geothermal evaluation for Providence Schools.

Baxter earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Tufts University in Massachusetts and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Purdue University. She earned her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech. She is a registered Professional Engineer in Rhode Island and a LEED Accredited Professional..

Founded in 1964, GZA GeoEnvironmental is a multi-disciplined firm providing environmental consulting, geotechnical and geo-civil engineering, environmental remediation, regulatory compliance, litigation support, air quality, solid waste services, specialty construction, occupational health and safety, and site development services. GZA maintains corporate offices in Norwood, Massachusetts, and the firm has 550 employees and operates 24 offices in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes Regions. For additional information, visit www.gza.com.

Engineer Receives Honor Reaching out to Children

2011-06-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

For more than 20 years, structural engineer Bob Johnson of Chicago has presented lectures on engineering to children and students in a host of outreach programs. Johnson's lectures feature interactive displays and presentations that are fun and educational and designed to enhance children’s interest in math, science, and, of course, engineering.

These efforts caught the attention of Water Reclamation District Commissioner Frank Avila, who recently presented an award to Johnson for his efforts, “In recognition of exceptional Leadership in educating our children in K-12 in Engineering.” The award was presented by Commissioner Avila during taping of a television program (CAN-TV) with Johnson. The program aired on Chicago Cable TV in late June and will be available via the Internet.

According to Avila, Johnson’s structural engineering models and ‘toys’ provide an enriching hands-on practical application of structural engineering principles. His building and bridge models provide students and adults insight into their designs.

Joint Venture Designing Los Angeles Regional Connector

2011-06-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) has selected a joint venture of AECOM and Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) to provide conceptual planning and preliminary design for the $1.4 billion Metro Regional Connector Transit Corridor Project, also known as the Downtown Connector or Downtown Light-Rail Connector.

The 1.9-mile-long underground rail connection will link the Metro Gold and Blue lines with the new Expo light rail through downtown Los Angeles, enabling passengers to travel from Azusa to Long Beach and from the Eastside to Culver City. In tying together light rail lines in downtown L.A., the Regional Connector will provide major regional north/south and east/west rail line linkages that will give transit commuters a one-seat, one-ticket ride and significant travel time savings not available today. The connection itself will save approximately 20 minutes of time by eliminating line transfers through downtown. The project is estimated to provide access to 90,000 passengers daily, including 17,000 new transit riders by 2035.

The Regional Connector will receive partial funding from Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase approved by the voters of Los Angeles County in November 2008 as part of the Measure R program, an aggressive vision of transportation improvements totaling $40 billion over 30 years. Rail and transit improvements were the cornerstone of the program, with over half of the total Measure R revenues dedicated to a broad set of commuter rail, light rail, and bus projects.

The AECOM/PB joint venture, known as the Connector Partnership, will be responsible for creating an advanced conceptual plan for the project as well as preliminary engineering, with options for design support during construction and system activation. The joint venture will also assist LACMTA with project controls and risk assessment. Construction on the connector could begin in 2013 and be completed by 2019, depending on the availability of federal funding.

AECOM is a global provider of professional technical and management support services to a broad range of markets, including transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, water, and government. With 45,000 employees around the world, AECOM serves clients in 125 countries. For more information, visit www.aecom.com.

Parsons Brinckerhoff develops and operates infrastructure around the world, with 14,000 employees serving clients and communities in the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia-Pacific regions. PB offers strategic consulting, planning, engineering, program/construction management, and operations for all modes of infrastructure, including transportation, power, community development, water, and the environment. Parsons Brinckerhoff is part of Balfour Beatty plc, the international infrastructure group operating in professional services, construction services, support services and infrastructure investments (www.pbworld.com).

HOK/Vanderweil Team Wins National Competition with "Process Zero" Building Retrofit Proposal

2011-06-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

METROPOLIS has announced that a team of young architects and engineers from HOK and Vanderweil Engineers has won the magazine’s Next Generation Design Competition with a proposal for a visionary, net-zero retrofit of a 1960s federal building in Los Angeles. The Washington, D.C.-based team, which worked on a volunteer basis for three months to create the winning submittal, offered a fully integrated design solution highlighted by solar collection, photovoltaic production, and the breakthrough use of an on-site microalgae bioreactor system.

The HOK/Vanderweil team’s proposal “Process Zero: Retrofit Resolution” demonstrates how an aging downtown office building, owned by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), could yield an 84-percent reduction in overall energy demand through energy conservation and renewal strategies. On-site energy generation would supply the remaining 16 percent needed to achieve the net-zero goal.

The team’s recommendation of the use of an energy-producing envelope system, highlighted by a modular system of algae tubes along the building’s façade, was among the many strategies that appealed to the Next Generation jury. The tubes would absorb the sun’s radiation to produce lipids for on-site fuel production while also shading interior office spaces within the 1.2-million-square-foot building. The 25,000-square-foot microalgae bioreactor system would generate 9 percent of the building’s power supply following the retrofit.

“Harvesting algae to generate energy is a new concept for building applications, but it shows a lot of promise,” says Brandon Harwick, PE, who led the design team along with HOK’s Sean Quinn. “Urban buildings would be especially suitable given the carbon dioxide levels found in city environments. As design professionals, we need to remember that nature has a lot to offer.”

The 15-person team “put in a lot of weekends and long nights” says Harwick. “It was many hours of research, design, and number crunching, but we also tried to be as creative as possible and bring a lot of ideas to the table. We wanted to demonstrate an approach that not only reflects the latest in design and technology but calls for a whole new mindset, one that engages and involves tenants as well.”

Highlights of the retrofit proposal include:

Thin film photovoltaic façade solar shading system

Rooftop photovoltaic panels

Integrated solar-thermal and photovoltaic rooftop panels for space and domestic water heating

An algae bioreactor system

A cloud computing system contributes to an 80-percent reduction in office equipment energy use

Radiant floor heating

Geothermal cooling

Rainwater harvesting

Energy recovery mechanical ventilation

Central atria for daylighting and natural ventilization

Phase-changing insulation material in ceilings to help extend natural ventilation periods

Daylight controls reduce artificial lighting energy consumption by 75 percent

“What is particularly remarkable about this solution was how a large, interdisciplinary team collaborated on a comprehensive plan that not only achieves net zero, but also deploys its design and technical solutions in a humanistic and contextually integrated way,” says METROPOLIS editor-in-chief Susan Szenasy.

GSA Chief Architect Leslie Shepherd says he and the other jurors were impressed by “the sophistication of the winning entry and of the many other inventive submissions. With appropriate testing and validation, certain Next Generation strategies could be replicated across a wider swath of our Great Society-era buildings.”

Founded in 1950, R.G. Vanderweil Engineers specializes in mechanical, electrical, and plumbing system design, commissioning for buildings, and central heating and chiller plants, power generation, and transmission and distribution systems. The 330-employee firm has offices in Boston (headquarters), New York, Princeton, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.vanderweil.com.

Skelly and Loy Adds CAD Specialist at Virginia Office

2011-06-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

Skelly and Loy has hired Kimberly Britton as a CAD Specialist in its Wise, Virginia office. In this role, Britton prepares maps, plans, cross sections, and other types of CAD drawings; prepares exhibits for permit applications and other technical reports; and prepares field surveys as needed. With more than 16 years experience, she provides CAD services using the AutoCAD 2010 suite of products (AutoCAD Map, Raster Design, and Land Desktop). An experienced survey crew member, Britton is proficient with ArcMap, ArcCatalog, and ArcToolbox and experienced with GPS survey equipment using Terrasynch software and Pathfinder Office to postprocess.

Most recently, Britton worked for the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy, where she reviewed annual and final maps for state approval. In fall of 2010, Skelly and Loy expanded its operations into Wise, Virginia, located in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains and Central Appalachian Coal Region. This location allows the firm the opportunity to more effectively offer its engineering and environmental services to the central Appalachian region. Skelly and Loy has provided mining engineering services throughout the United States and around the world for the past 42 years. Skelly and Loy’s Mining Services Group is staffed with mining engineers (surface and underground), geologists, and scientists who can guide proposed and active mining operations from a pre-feasibility stage through geologic investigations, detailed design, permitting (state and federal), and reclamation. Our mining engineering services are offered to mining companies, electric utilities relying on coal as a boiler fuel, financial institutions, and support industries.

Skelly and Loy, celebrating its 42nd year in business, is a mid-sized engineering-environmental consulting firm with six Mid-Atlantic offices and is among the top engineering and environmental firms in the nation, consistently ranking among Engineering News Record’s Top 200 Environmental Firms. The firm provides expert mining, geologic, engineering, environmental, waste management, water resource, and cultural resource services to private and public sector clients throughout the United States and abroad.

AMEC Acquires MACTEC

2011-06-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

AMEC, the international engineering and project management company, announced recently that it has agreed to buy MACTEC, an engineering and environmental services company, for a cash consideration of US$280 million. Headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, MACTEC has some 2,600 employees, mostly technical professionals, and 70 offices, the majority in the Eastern United States. It provides a similar wide range of services to AMEC’s existing Earth & Environmental (E&E) business, including environmental planning, assessment and remediation, infrastructure engineering, water resources, and construction support services.

MACTEC has a public- and private-sector client base and provides a broad range of environment and infrastructure services to the energy, commercial/industrial, transportation/infrastructure, and federal sectors. In North America, E&E has a strong presence in the Western United States and in Canada, so the combination allows AMEC greater access to new clients and regions and MACTEC a better international platform for growth.

Neil Bruce, Chief Operating Officer of AMEC, says, “This acquisition is fully aligned with AMEC’s Vision 2015 growth strategy and provides us with the right scale to service this important and growing environmental and infrastructure engineering services market.” Hisham Mahmoud, president of AMEC’s E&E business, adds, “MACTEC and E&E have a complementary client base and service offering, with minimal overlay in geographic coverage. Our combined business significantly enhances our competitive position in the U.S. market and is in line with our strategy of global geographic expansion.”

The combined E&E business will be headquartered in Alpharetta and led by Hisham Mahmoud. It will have more than 7,000 employees around the globe and bring AMEC’s total North American workforce to almost 14,000.

StormwateRx Wins Environmental Excellence Award for Green Enterprise & Technology

2011-06-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

Editor's note: See our company profile on StormwateRx in our May/June 2010 issues under Back Issues (www.ProgressiveEngineer.com)

StormwateRx, a provider of industrial stormwater treatment and filtration systems, was honored recently with an Environmental Excellence Award from the Association of Washington Business (AWB). StormwateRx won the 2011 Green Enterprise & Technology Award for the company’s systems that help industrial sites manage and treat stormwater runoff and prevent pollutants from entering local waterways. In addition, StormwateRx customer Seaview Boatyard received an AWB award for Leading Environmental Practices for their implementation of green technologies and practices, including stormwater treatment, that have helped them become one of the most environmentally progressive boatyards in the Northwest.

“Whether it’s organic farming, recycling, or educating the public about best environmental practices, the companies we celebrate today have become industry leaders for finding innovative, sustainable solutions to ongoing challenges,” says AWB President Don Brunell. “Research confirms that Washington state is one of the greenest states in the county, leading the way in everything from renewable resources to venture capital investments in clean projects. The companies we honor today further underscore that distinction and will help us grow our economy in new, innovative, and sustainable ways.”

StormwateRx designs, manufactures and installs stormwater treatment systems for industrial sites across the United States and Canada. The company also has developed a series of best practices and ideal product configurations that address the unique environmental concerns of different industries and help companies met environmental benchmarks.

“We are honored to receive this award from the AWB,” says Calvin Noling, president and CEO of StormwateRx, LLC. “Winning an Environmental Excellence award in the state of Washington, while also seeing one of our customers receive honors for their own environmental leadership, holds particular significance for us.”

With a number of environmentally sensitive areas, major waterways, and a relatively high amount of annual rainfall, the state of Washington has implemented some of the most protective stormwater benchmarks in North America. StormwateRx has more than 30 installations in Washington alone, with the capacity to treat five million gallons of polluted Washington stormwater per day. These systems are removing thousands of pounds of toxic pollutants each year to protect Puget Sound and other Washington waterways.

Formed in 1904, the Association of Washington Business is Washington’s oldest and largest statewide business association. Each year the AWB recognizes member companies for their initiative, innovation,and outstanding achievements in environmental compliance, protection, and conservation. The Environmental Excellence Awards are presented in conjunction with the AWB Spring Meeting in Spokane.

StormwateRx, LLC manufactures stormwater filtration and treatment systems for industrial sites. Products include the Clara settling system, Retenu roughing filter, Aquip stormwater filtration system, and Purus stormwater polishing system. More information can be found at www.stormwaterx.com.

IBE Consulting Engineers Elevates Hank Dahl to Principal

2011-06-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

IBE Consulting Engineers, an MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) engineering and sustainable design firm, has promoted four staff members and added one to its team in its Los Angeles office. The appointments include one new principal to the IBE leadership ranks, William “Hank” Dahl, Jr., who was promoted from senior associate. The internal promotions also include three new associates: mechanical engineer Qing “Carol” Li, PE, LEED AP; electrical engineer Henrik Hertz; and plumbing engineer Teofilo “Teng” Ernesto Yadao, EIT.

Dahl has 35 years of electrical engineering design experience gained from working on large-scale medical and medical research lab facilities, museums, entertainment industry projects, and office buildings.

Prior to joining IBE in 2006, Dahl collaborated with IBE on the MEP design for the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, VA and the Getty Villa Renovation in Malibu, CA.

Since new associate Henrik Hertz joined IBE in 2010, his electrical engineering designs have contributed to a variety of projects, including the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles; Huntington Library Entry and Visitor Center, San Marino, CA; and numerous projects at UCLA. Hertz holds a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Engineering College of Copenhagen in Denmark.

As a lead plumbing engineer, associate Teng Yadao uses 3D-modeling software to design the plumbing system layouts for IBE projects. Since joining the firm in 2007, his project portfolio includes Anna Head West Student Housing at University of California, Berkeley; 9900 Wilshire in Beverly Hills, CA; and Porterville Courthouse in Porterville, CA. Yadao holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Mapua Institute of Technology in Manila, Philippines, and is a certified Engineer-in-Training.

Associate Carol Li, PE, LEED AP, who joined IBE in 2007, has more than 20 years of international mechanical engineering experience. In addition to designing various mechanical systems such as radiant, air volume control, and displacement systems, she performs the energy simulation models for IBE projects and prepares LEED submittals. Her portfolio at IBE includes the College of the Desert Classroom Building in Palm Springs, CA; Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA; and several projects at UCLA. Li holds both Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Engineering degrees from Xian Jiaotong University in Xian, China. She also holds a Graduate Certificate of Fire Safety Engineering from the Victoria University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.

Envirogen to Supply Fluidized Bed Reactor System for Perchlorate Remediation at Nevada Industrial Site

2011-06-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

Envirogen Technologies recently announced it has been awarded a contract by American Pacific Corporation (AMPAC) to provide a large-scale fluidized bed bioreactor (FBR) system for the biodegradation of perchlorate and other constituents from groundwater in the area of a former manufacturing facility in Henderson, Nevada. The 1.2-million-gallons-per-day-capacity system will replace a smaller biological-based system in operation since 2006 and use Envirogen’s patented FBR technology in a custom configuration to reduce influent concentrations of perchlorate to non-detectable levels prior to surface discharge. Currently in the design phase, the new treatment system is scheduled for startup in December 2011.

According to Robert Stark, south region vice president for Envirogen, this latest project underscores increasing industry awareness and acceptance of the FBR as a reliable and environmentally sustainable solution to groundwater remediation needs. “This innovative green technology continues to distinguish itself as the best answer to heavily perchlorate-laden groundwater in both remediation and drinking water applications. In this instance, we are targeting perchlorate as the primary contaminant but can remove both chlorate and nitrate with the same process,” Stark says. “With a number of installations providing trouble-free operation over the past 13 years, the FBR’s benefits are well proven. These systems are designed to provide robust treatment in a small footprint with acceptable waste rates and reduced energy and chemical consumption. The technology’s flexibility to handle multiple constituents and varying flow characteristics also bodes well for its potential to treat other significant emerging contaminants such as selenium, hexavalent chromium, or chlorinated solvents,” he continues. According to Joseph Carleone, president and CEO of AMPAC, “We are very pleased with the Envirogen equipment, which treats organic waste streams at our Sacramento facility, and look forward to working with them on our Henderson, Nevada, project.”

Perchlorate is a highly soluble anion used in the manufacture of solid rocket propellant, fireworks, road flares, explosives, and other products. Envirogen’s FBR is a fixed-film bioreactor in which biological media is suspended, or fluidized, within the reactor vessel by the upward flow of water through the system. The suspended media provides a large surface area for microbial growth and allows a biomass density several times greater than that of other bioreactor designs under similar loading conditions. Microorganisms in the reactor completely destroy influent perchlorate and other targeted contaminants under anoxic conditions, without generating hazardous waste byproducts.

The new system being designed and built for AMPAC by Envirogen will consist of three FBRs and an H-120 biofilter for odor control. The facility will remove up to 500 parts per million (ppm) of perchlorate in the groundwater to non-detectable levels and, depending on the load, treat up to 800 gallons per minute. Envirogen will also provide installation oversight and customer support through the training and startup phases of system implementation.

According to Jeff Gibson, vice president and chief technical officer of AMPAC, the choice of FBR technology comes after a thorough technical evaluation. “Based on our experience since 2006 with a smaller, full-scale in-situ biological-based technology, we chose the ex-situ biologically-based fluidized bed reactor technology because it should allow us to achieve remedial goals that have changed since 2005. Working with the State of Nevada, Division of Environmental Protection, we believe we have formulated a plan to use the Envirogen FBR technology in a manner beneficial to the State of Nevada over the long term,” he says.

Headquartered in the Houston suburb of Kingwood, Texas, Envirogen designs, builds and implements systems for business in municipal and industrial water and environmental treatment applications. A primary focus for Envirogen is the concept of lifecycle performance, in which the company provides guaranteed, pay-for-performance, long-term contracts at predictable costs that offer customers the lowest total cost over the lifetime of an equipment installation. Primary applications for Envirogen’s systems include treatment of groundwater for the delivery of high-quality potable water, groundwater remediation, wastewater treatment, water re-use, nutrient removal, and odor and VOC control for municipal and industrial markets. In industrial markets such as mining, hydrocarbon processing, and chemical processing, Envirogen also specializes in process water treatment, byproduct recovery and chemical purification. The company conducts business throughout the United States, with regional offices in Southern California, Illinois, New Jersey and Tennessee. For more information on the company, visit www.envirogen.com.

Geocomp Appoints Cynthia Cogan, P.E. as Group Manager of Consulting Services

2011-06-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

Geocomp, a geo-engineering firm headquartered in Acton, Massachusetts, is proud to announce and welcome Cynthia Cogan, P.E. as a group manager of consulting services overseeing Massachusetts and California operations. She will have profit-and-loss responsibility for these groups and as a senior technical leader will oversee a growing professional practice.

Cogan brings to the position over 17 years of industry experience and will focus her efforts on developing expanded project reach and strengthening client relationships on behalf of the company. Cogan’s unique combination of technical knowledge and understanding of strategic client management will be paramount in driving Geocomp’s continued sales growth. Working as a member of top management, she will help drive new market strategies and technical execution to aid in the company’s expansion.

Prior to joining Geocomp, she served as a project director at ENSR/AECOM, where she oversaw management of a large-scale residential remedial investigation and interim remedial measures program. She holds both her M.S. and B.S. in Civil Engineering and is a Massachusetts Professional Engineer.

For over 28 years, Geocomp’s teams of engineers and scientists have solved geo-engineering problems for all types of infrastructure projects. Geocomp specializes in the engineering and control of risk for construction below the ground surface for all types of structures, including tough projects with challenging soil conditions and related structural design criteria. Geocomp improves the design and construction team's understanding of subsurface conditions and provides geo-engineering solutions resulting in better control of the risk and cost of construction for owners.

Whether applied to earth and rock retention structures, deep foundation design, tunneling, bridges, or advanced material development and testing, Geocomp leverages its experience on thousands of projects. This includes real-time, web based instrumentation and monitoring systems; computer software and instrumentation; advanced numerical modeling; active risk management protocols; soil, rock and geosynthetics testing services; and the manufacture of automated test equipment. In addition to their Massachusetts location in Acton, Geocomp has locations in New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Peru.

Methane Power Co-Generation Project Earns EPA Award

2011-06-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized the St. Mary’s County Metropolitan Commission with a PISCES award for its Methane Power Co-Generation and Digester project at the Marlay-Taylor Water Reclamation Facility in Maryland. The reconstruction and improvement project, designed by the consulting firm of Dewberry, was noted for successfully minimizing methane emissions while reducing energy costs without a significant expansion onto previously undisturbed land.

The Marlay-Taylor Methane Power Co-Generation and Digester Upgrade project captures methane created during the wastewater treatment process and uses the gas to generate electricity for the treatment plant. The heat produced in the process is used in the digesters to aid in the production of additional methane.

The project involved reconstruction of the two primary anaerobic digester lids; repairs to the digester tanks; construction of new facilities to capture, clean, and store methane gas; and installation of two 165-kilowatt generators. The commission anticipates the project will supply approximately 25 percent of the plant’s electricity and meet 100 percent of the digester heat requirements.

The project was funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Maryland Clean Water State Revolving Fund. Dewberry served as design engineer for the project, with the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company as general contractor. The PISCES Award recognizes projects that advance EPA goals of performance and water quality protection.

Dewberry is a professional services firm providing architecture, engineering, and management and consulting services to public- and private-sector clients. Established in 1956, Dewberry is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia with more than 40 locations and 1,800+ professionals nationwide. To learn more, visit www.dewberry.com.

FEA Unveils Corporate Sustainability Policy

2011-06-19T18:18:00.000-07:00

Facility Engineering Associates (FEA) recently announced the appointment of Maureen Roskoski as corporate sustainability officer. This appointment coincides with the implementation of a corporate sustainability policy that formalizes FEA’s commitment to operating in a sustainable manner. With an emphasis on the built environment, FEA has helped its clients deal with the challenges of sustainability in millions of square feet of facilities nationwide over its 18-year history.

FEA has committed to operating as a sustainable company by reducing its carbon footprint, managing its resources more effectively, and providing services to clients that allow them to operate their facilities more efficiently, using fewer natural resources while maximizing the health, safety, and productivity of their workplaces.

Jim Whittaker, president of FEA, says, “Maureen brings a wealth of experience in LEED, sustainability strategic planning, and overall sustainable facility operations. She has worked with hundreds of clients around the country in developing strategic sustainability and energy management plans and helping facilities achieve LEED certification. She also shares her passion and personal interest through teaching others. Maureen teaches sustainability workshops through George Mason University and International Facility Management Association.”

As a nationally based consulting engineering firm, FEA specializes in existing facilities, and the firm's services help extend the life cycle of facilities. FEA is headquartered in Washington, DC and has additional offices in Boston, MA; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; and San Francisco, CA. For more information, visit www.feapc.com.

UA-Yuma Engineering Student Awarded Boeing Scholarship

2011-06-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

An engineering student at the University of Arizona Yuma Learning Center has received an annual scholarship from Boeing Company. Aaron Remmy, an undergraduate student studying systems engineering, is one of four students awarded this year's Boeing Company Scholarship. The scholarships have been awarded annually since 2003 to students in engineering degree programs with a 3.0 grade point average (GPA) or higher.

Remmy is currently part of a unique distance learning program where engineering students spend their first three years studying at Arizona Western College/UA-Yuma center then attend classes at the UA main campus their final year to finish earning their Bachelor's degree in engineering. The Yuma/SIE partnership is in its first year as a distance learning program, and Remmy is part of a group of six engineering students currently participating in upper level engineering courses in Yuma, says Larry Head, head of the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering at UA. "Aaron is very much a leader in that group, and that's why he was an easy choice as a scholarship recipient," Head said.

Approximately 60 students are currently taking entry level college engineering courses in Yuma, says Tanya Hodges, the UA coordinator for academic programs at the Yuma. Other students awarded the Boeing Company Scholarship this year include electrical engineering undergraduate Cheyne Harvey, aerospace engineering senior Ryan Crompton, and civil engineering undergraduate Sonia Sarmiento, all at the UA College of Engineering.

GAI Building Opens for Business in Orlando

2011-06-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

The new GAI Building has opened for business, welcoming anchor tenant GAI Consultants to downtown Orlando, FL’s first privately developed green office. Formerly an infill site, the new $30 million development boasts 105,000 square feet of professional office space and a 300-space integrated parking garage. The sustainable facility has been designed for LEED certification, with eco-friendly features including floors made from corn and Energy Star qualified technology devices. GAI Consultants signed a long-term lease to occupy 65,000 square feet of the seven-story GAI Building. “With nearly 30 years of service to downtown Orlando, GAI is proud to have its name on this significant development,” noted President and CEO Gary DeJidas, P.E.

Founded in Pittsburgh, PA, GAI established its first branch office in Orlando in 1982, when DeJidas expanded operations into the Southeast. GAI’s Orlando office, now the second largest of the firm’s 21 locations, needed a more modern, sustainable space. Ustler Development, Inc. delivered the solution, a downtown structure designed for a smaller environmental footprint than typical urban buildings.

In addition to being the anchor tenant, GAI served as the project’s civil engineer. Ustler Development led the project team, which included Baker Barrios Architects and general contractor Brasfield & Gorrie. Construction began in late 2009 and ended in March 2011. Ustler Development is currently pursuing LEED silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Transforming ideas into reality for more than 50 years, GAI is an employee-owned, multidisciplinary engineering and environmental consulting firm, serving clients worldwide in the energy, transportation, real estate, water, municipal, government, institutional, and industrial markets from offices throughout the northeastern, midwestern, and southeastern United States. For more information, visit www.gaiconsultants.com.

Society of Manufacturing Engineers Announces List of Innovations That Could Change the Way We Manufacture

2011-03-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

Honoring both innovation and manufacturing, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) recently announced the 2011 list of Innovations That Could Change The Way You Manufacture. This annual list showcases new and emerging technologies making a difference in manufacturing and that can be used today or within a few months and have already shown some successful implementation. “Not only has innovation enabled us to make better things at lower costs,” says Boris Fritz of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems and vice chair of SME’s Innovation Watch Committee, the panel of industry experts that selected the innovations, “but innovation also leads to the development of things we couldn’t even dream of just a decade ago.”

Among this year’s innovations is graphene, the strongest material ever developed, and this one-atom-thick sheet of carbon is lightweight and electrically conductive. Fifty times stronger than steel, graphene is used for extremely sensitive sensors, super-fast electronic switches, aircraft braking systems and touch screens. Companies using graphene include IBM and Bell Helicopter, and the material is available from companies such as Angstron Materials.

Programmable magnets open the door to self assembling. The ability to manipulate magnetic fields lends itself to many applications from precision switches to snowboard bindings to spinal implants. Using heat to erase a magnetic field, the material can be reprogrammed to have multiple north and south poles of differing strengths. These magnets are available from Correlated Magnetics.

Not all innovations on this list are technical. The committee also recognized the Build to Demand (BTD) process as something that can change the way things are manufactured. BTD, an alternative to the Toyota Production System (TPS), works well for suppliers that experience variable demand and seek to increase customer service rates while reducing inventories and production costs. Limited or no capital investment is required to implement BTD in most companies. John Deere Horicon Works originally developed BTD in the early 2000s with assistance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Microstructured molding tools will impact manufacturers of products that could benefit from enhanced surface capabilities. Created as square or custom inserts for injection or compression molds, the innovation adds several capabilities to any molded product: superhydrophobic, reduced friction, reduced fluid drag, increased heat transfer and many others. This approach reduces microstructure manufacturing cost by 83 percent to 98 percent. Developed by Hoowaki, microstructured tooling has been available since the spring of 2010.

Programming light with quantum dots is an innovation that promises to change not only the way things are manufactured but also the way we light our homes and offices.Quantum dots are nanoparticles of a semiconductor material that range from 2 to 10 nanometers in diameter. The ability to control the size of a quantum dot enables a manufacturer to determine the color of light emitted. Quantum dots currently provide brighter images, lower power consumption, and improved color purity for electroluminescent displays. Companies manufacturing quantum dot-enabled products include QD Vision and Weinberg Medical Physics.

Controlled through a Web-based application, a remote-presence robot allows a telecommuting worker to remotely attend meetings, drop into the offices of colleagues, and otherwise collaborate with people in another office. With cameras in the eyes to capture video, speakers and microphones to relay sound and a laser pointer “finger,” the user can see what the robot sees and direct it around by using a computer’s arrow keys. Companies such as Procter & Gamble use these remote-presence robots to increase the efficiencies of teams working across the world.

Ten times stickier than Velcro and reusable gecko-inspired glues, Super Velcro is an extremely strong adhesive that comes apart when heated. Using shape-memory polymers, General Motors researchers have created a product that allows a strong but alterable bond that replaces liquid adhesives requiring lengthy oven curing, which consumes a lot of energy, or foam tapes that do not provide high adhesion strength. Super Velcro is currently used for interior and exterior automotive trims with potential applications for furniture, toys, and buildings.

In reviewing submissions for the Innovations That Could Change the Way You Manufacture, the committee also highlights an Innovation Watch List. These technologies are showing great promise but are unproven in the manufacturing setting. This year’s list includes:

Continuous-flow microreactors
Dip-pen nanolithography
Green cement
Large-format ceramic batteries
Laser heating in a diamond anvil cell
Metamaterials
Self-assembling vehicles
Synthetic cells

“Because most people use common, everyday products that are frequently outsourced, they think that manufacturing in America is dead,” says Fritz. “Innovations like those identified today should be a reminder that American manufacturing has moved beyond the production of commodities and is one of the most technologically advanced sectors of our economy.”

PBS&J's Clear Creek County Bike Trail Project Receives Award

2011-03-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

The Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association recognized Clear Creek County’s Bakerville to Loveland Bikeway and Pedestrian Trail as the Best Overall Quality of Special Use Pavements in their 17th Annual “Best in Colorado” Asphalt Pavement awards. PBS&J, an Atkins company, navigated the fast-tracked project through intergovernmental agreements, design, advertisement, award, and construction management.

Prior to completion of the project, the only accessible route for cyclists along the five-mile stretch between Bakerville and Loveland was on the shoulder of Interstate-70. An existing dirt path that ran parallel to the interstate was not well-suited to bicycling. Now, in cooperation with the Colorado Department of Transportation, United States Forest Service, Clear Creek Ranger District of the Arapaho National Forest, and the Federal Highway Administration, Clear Creek County offers hikers and bikers a scenic and safe recreational trail.

The initial budget for the project, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), allowed for only a portion of the path to be paved. But as a result of PBS&J proposing a fixed-budget, best-value contracting method to eliminate the risk of budget overruns, the ARRA contribution was doubled, alloweing for the paving of the entire five-mile trail.

Founded in 1960 and based in Florida, PBS&J provides engineering, planning, architecture, construction, environmental, and program management services. The firm has approximately 2,700 employees and more than 80 offices in the United States.

Plastics Pipe Institute Adds Director of Engineering

2011-03-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

The Plastics Pipe Institute (PPI) announced that Randy Knapp has joined the organization as director of engineering, Fuel Gas and Building & Construction Divisions. Reporting to the PPI executive director, Knapp will be responsible for the institute's technical, marketing, and industry outreach programs.

Knapp had been the brand/product manager for UPONOR - USA, a member company of PPI, a membership-based trade association representing all segments of the plastic pipe industry. The mission of the organization is to promote plastics as the material of choice for pipe applications.

"This newly created position provides increased stewardship for two divisions within PPI where growth indicators for market expansion are clear,“ Tony Radoszewski, executive director of PPI says. "His extensive professional background, knowledge of the PPI, its goals and challenges, along with his academic accreditations and his insight about national standards organizations all combine for our greater benefit and that of the industry overall. Randy’s main focus will be further advancing that knowledge and broadening the scope of end-users of polyethylene pipe within these divisions."

Knapp earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California State University - Northridge, an MBA from the University of St. Thomas (MN), and is completing his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Minnesota.

Additional information can be found at www.plasticpipe.org.

Bioengineering Pioneer Accepts Ohio University’s Russ Prize

2011-03-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

Leroy Hood of Seattle, Wash., was honored with the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize recently during a gala held by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). The Russ Prize, created by Ohio University with a gift from alumnus Fritz Russ and his wife, Dolores, was among the engineering profession's highest honors for 2011 during the black-tie dinner event at Union Station in Washington, D.C. Hood received the $500,000 biennial award, which recognizes a bioengineering achievement in widespread use that significantly improves the human condition, for developing the DNA sequencer.

Hood's invention made possible the sequencing of the human genome in just more than a decade instead of a century. "The human genome project transformed biology as perhaps no other science project has ever done," Hood said, noting that the project "democratized" all human genes by making them accessible to all biologists.

An inventor, scholar, and visionary, Hood has pioneered bringing engineering to biology through his invention and commercialization of many of the key analytic instruments in use today and through his successful application of these instruments to some of the most fundamental problems in modern biology and medicine. To date, more than 1,000 genomes have been revealed using the automated DNA sequencer, transforming many areas of biology. The advancement has also led to expressed sequence tagging, which ultimately helped to predict gene function; the ability to identify genes involved in diseases; a change in how pharmaceutical companies make drugs; and an economic impact in the life sciences and healthcare estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Hood, president and co-founder of the non-profit Institute for Systems Biology, and his colleagues currently are using advances in genomics, proteomics, and molecular diagnostics to pioneer advances in diagnostics, therapeutics, and prevention that will focus increasingly on promoting wellness rather than merely treating disease. Hood predicts a sea change in healthcare as we know it with the advent of what he terms "P4" medicine -- predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory – made possible by his work. "This revolutionary new medicine will have important societal implications by sharply turning around the ever escalating costs of healthcare, and important medical implications because the twin vision of P4 medicine are wellness quantified and disease demystified," Hood explains.

Previous Russ Prize recipients include Elmer Gaden (2009), engineering and commercialization of biological systems for large-scale manufacturing of antibiotics and other drugs; Yuan-Cheng "Bert" Fung (2007), the father of biomechanical engineering; Leland C. Clark Jr. (2005), inventor of biosensors; Willem J. Kolff (2003), the father of artificial organs; and Earl E. Bakken and Wilson Greatbatch (2001), inventors of the heart pacemaker.

Virginia Tech's Fred Lee Named to the National Academy of Engineering

2011-03-14T08:24:00.001-07:00

Fred Lee, an internationally recognized leader in the field of power electronics, is one of 68 new members elected to the National Academy of Engineering for 2011. For some three decades, Lee’s work has led to a paradigm shift in the manufacturing of power electronics products, including both computers and telecommunications, motor drives for heat pumps, air conditioners, and other industrial and commercial applications.

"Almost everything a consumer touches has power electronics in it. It is really an enabling technology that is not visible,” Lee explains. He and his research group are changing the way electricity is used. For example, if data centers, which use enormous amounts of energy, can be redesigned from the current AC distributed system, using off-the-shelf equipment, to a new power system architecture based on high-voltage DC systems, an initial study shows the efficiency could be improved some 10 to 20 percent. Web giant Google claimed that every one percent improvement in the efficiency of the data center means a $1 million savings in electrical energy bills, according to Lee, who started at Virginia Tech in 1977.

In 1983, Lee, a Virginia Tech University Distinguished Professor, founded the Virginia Power Electronics Center. In 1987, the center was designated as a Technology Development Center of the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology. Under Lee’s leadership, this center became the largest university-based power electronics research group in the country. More than 90 industries became associated with the center.

In August 1998, Lee was successful in competing for a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center called the Center for Power Electronics Systems, with total National Science Foundation funding that exceeds $30 million. Lee directed this government center, comprised of five universities and more than 100 corporations, for 10 years, the maximum number allowed by the scientific agency. Lee’s vision was to make the U.S. the most efficient user of electrical energy in the world and to guide the center's work to produce a 30 percent savings in electric power consumption. Afterwards, the center needed to be self-sustaining, and Lee accomplished this goal.

Lee has pioneered lecture and laboratory courses to support power electronics and has supervised 80 master’s level and 69 Ph.D. students. Since 1977, total funding secured by Lee exceeds $87 million. He invented a new generation of high frequency power conversion devices known as quasi-resonant converters and multi-resonant converters and various soft-switching pulse-width modulation techniques. These devices have led to the development of the latest generation of power conversion equipment, offering notable reduction in size and weight as well as significant improvement in power conversion efficiency and reliability. He holds 69 patents.

All manufacturers of computer processors use a multi-phase voltage regulator module (VRM) that Lee’s lab helped develop. Since 1998, every microprocessor (Intel and otherwise) has been powered with this multi-phase VRM technology. It has enabled the U.S. power electronics industry to continue maintaining its leadership in both technology and market positions, allowing new job creation and job retention in the American workforce.

Lee earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from Duke University in 1972 and in 1974, respectively. He earned his undergraduate degree from the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan in 1968.

PumpScout.com Connects Pump Buyers with Pump Manufacturers and Suppliers

2011-03-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

Finding the right industrial pump suppliers and getting multiple price quotes has gotten easier with the debut of PumpScout.com, a search engine that helps pump buyers such as engineers, maintenance professionals, and contractors connect with pump suppliers and get quotes. The website invites buyers to enter their pump system criteria and then identifies suppliers that sell the pump they need. Pump buyers can even specify whether they want service from a local or national supplier.

PumpScout.com features more than 80 pump suppliers and their product lines including Blackmer, AMT, Ruhrpumpen, Griswold, Wilden, and Cat Pumps. The suppliers’ products serve multiple industries including oil and gas, chemical process, water and wastewater, construction, mining, power generation and more. “Pump buyers understand their system criteria and have an idea of the type of pump they are looking for, but getting quotes from multiple suppliers can mean hours trolling the Internet. PumpScout.com saves buyers that time and provides a quick and easy way to compare price quotes for the pump they need,” says Justin Johnson, PumpScout.com co-founder and CEO.

PumpScout.com’s featured pump manufacturers and pump distributors receive qualified sales leads, increased web traffic, and improved search engine rankings. “We are aggressively increasing our partnerships with pump suppliers, loading more than 25 companies and their product lines into our system each month,” Johnson says. “We want to be the go-to resource for pump buyers.”

PumpScout.com also includes numerous tips and tools from experts in the fluid handling industry. The comprehensive Pump Types Guide is an easy-to-use resource for those needing to identify the right pump type(s) for their application. And PumpScout.com’s Expert Tips articles provide additional advice from consultants and industry experts on topics from saving money and time in buying pumps to practical pump maintenance.

For more information, visit www.PumpScout.com.

GEI Consultants Hires Steven Thorne, P.E., D.GE

2011-03-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

GEI Consultants, a geotechnical, environmental, water resources, and ecological science and engineering firms, has hired Steven Thorne, P.E., D.GE as a senior consultant in its Montclair, New Jersey office. With over 25 years of experience, Thorne’s specialties include geotechnical engineering and geo-environmental consulting.

A Board Certified Geotechnical Engineer (D.GE) with the Academy of Geo-Professionals, Thorne's areas of geotechnical expertise include deep foundations, soft ground construction, slope stability, ground improvement and seismic evaluation. His geo-environmental experience includes site investigations, remedial investigations and remedial action work.

Reporting to Fred Johnson, Atlantic Region manager and Matthew Levinson, P.E., senior environmental engineer and the Montclair office branch manager, Thorne will serve as senior geotechnical practice leader, focusing his efforts primarily on New York and New Jersey while servicing select national clients. Thorne has more than 25 years of geotechnical engineering experience in the region.

“We’ve known Steve for years and have always been very impressed by his technical reputation,” says Johnson. “As our technical practice continues to grow, we began searching for an individual with the right mix of experience, knowledge, and industry reputation. We are fortunate to add Steve to our East Coast team.” Thorne, who received his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, is a registered professional engineer in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

GEI's multi-disciplined team of engineers and scientists deliver geotechnical, environmental, water resources and ecological solutions to diverse clientele nationwide. For more information, visit the firm’s website at www.geiconsultants.com.

Keith Piepenburg, P.E. elected to Baisch Engineering’s Board of Directors

2011-03-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

Baisch Engineering, an engineering and consulting firm providing full-service integration for process-related industries, has elected Keith Piepenburg, P.E., Baisch principal and process department manager, to their board of directors. Keith now holds the title of corporate director and process department manager.

Piepenburg has been a Baisch employee for 33 years and a shareholder for the past 13 years. He is responsible for overseeing 30 employees in the Process Department. His experience in the pulp and paper industry includes installation of new paper machines, paper machine relocations, and a number of major paper machine rebuilds related to a variety of paper grades as well as a broad spectrum of other projects.

Based in Kaukauna, WI, Baisch Engineering has about 90 employees and was founded in 1958. Baisch provides services nationally and internationally, including process, mechanical, civil, structural, architectural, electrical, instrumentation and process control, and project administration.

Beaudin Ganze Consulting Engineers Continues to Grow Albuquerque Staff

2011-03-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

Beaudin Ganze Consulting Engineers (BGCE) has added another staff member to its Albuquerque, New Mexico office. Brandon Tyler joined BGCE last week after graduating from Oklahoma State University with a degree in mechanical engineering. Brandon performed HVAC and plumbing design on the OSU Houston Center and NEO Student Union renovations and upgrades. BGCE plans to put Brandon’s education and work experience to good use on mechanical engineering projects for educational, healthcare, commercial, and government clients.

Beaudin Ganze Consulting Engineers is involved in LEED, commissioning, energy audits, mechanical, electrical, lighting and technology engineering services from offices in Albuquerque; Denver, Fort Collins, and Vail, Colorado; and Truckee, California. Sustainable design for reduced operating and maintenance costs is fundamental to the firm’s practice. Since inception in 1991, BGCE has grown to over 50 staff members, of which 24 are Professional Engineers and 81 percent are LEED Accredited Professionals. For more information, visit www.bgce.com.

Ruekert/Mielke Names Jason Lietha Stockholder

2011-03-13T18:39:00.000-07:00

Ruekert/Mielke announces that Jason Lietha, P.E. has been named a stockholder with the firm. Manager of Ruekert/Mielke’s Madison, WI office, Lietha has worked on numerous public works projects during the course of his 13-year career as a Professional Engineer in Wisconsin. He has designed sanitary sewer and water distribution systems, business parks, street reconstructions, and stormwater management programs. Lietha serves as the contract engineer for the City of Columbus, Wisconsin and holds a B.S. degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

Ruekert/Mielke of Waukesha, WI is a multi-disciplinary firm offering civil engineering and municipal services. Ruekert/Mielke assists with transportation engineering, water and wastewater management, storm water management, municipal and financial planning, landscape architecture, electrical engineering, computer software design, construction review services, and GIS and SCADA control system projects. The firm has provided services to numerous municipalities in Wisconsin and northern Illinois since 1946.

Dewberry Welcomes Expertise of James Keith, PE, CFM

2011-03-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm, has named James Keith senior project manager for the firm’s Denton, Texas office. In his new role, Keith will manage projects, provide senior technical guidance for local staff, and develop Dewberry’s water resources presence locally in North Texas.

Keith brings over 10 years of experience planning and designing flood control and water resources projects primarily in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex for local municipal and agency clients. Keith spent the last four years leading all modeling aspects for the design of a 1.6-mile bypass channel and ecosystem restoration areas for the Trinity River in Fort Worth, Texas.

Keith received his bachelor’s in hydrology and water resources fromTarleton State University. He is a member of the Texas Floodplain Management Association and the American Society of Military Engineers.

Dewberry provides architecture, engineering, and management and consulting services to public- and private-sector clients. Established in 1956, Dewberry is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia with more than 40 locations and 1,800-plus professionals nationwide. To learn more, visitwww.dewberry.com.

Tempe Streetcar Project Receives Regional Approval

2011-03-13T18:13:00.000-07:00

Editor's note: See our feature story on the Metro Light Rail system currently running on the front page of Progressive Engineer Magazine (www.ProgressiveEngineer.com)

Phoenix, Arizona's METRO received regional approval recently from the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) to move forward with 2.6-miles of modern streetcar that will run in the Mill Avenue corridor between Rio Salado Parkway and Southern Avenue in Tempe. The streetcar project is a result of a three-year study that evaluated high-capacity transit improvements to support Tempe and Chandler and enhance the existing, regional transit network.

“I’ve seen streetcar’s success as a public transit option and economic development generator during my time with TriMet, the regional transit agency in Portland, OR,” says METRO CEO Steve Banta. “Streetcar, working in conjunction with other modes, is a next step in developing a total transit network that supports metro Phoenix growth.”

Several study recommendations were made and approved by the Tempe City Council and METRO’s Board in November and MAG’s Regional Council at a recent meeting meeting. In addition to streetcar, the study calls for a bus rapid transit (BRT) line on Rural Road, connecting the cities of Tempe and Chandler. Both streetcar and BRT are viable projects and should be implemented as funding permits. Streetcar will advance first as local funding is available from Proposition 400, a countywide, half-cent transportation sales tax renewed by voters in 2004. METRO will also apply for a federal grant to support approximately half of the $160 million capital cost.

“The streetcar will connect a large number of our residents to light rail while creating an important connection between our neighborhoods and downtown,” says Tempe Councilmember and METRO Board member Shana Ellis. “The recently built streetcar projects in Portland and Seattle have demonstrated that empty storefronts and retail centers are reinvigorated, bringing new and desired amenities to neighborhoods and creating a thriving pedestrian environment.”

The MAG action adds the project to the long-range transportation plan and transportation improvement program, which underwent an air quality conformity analysis in January. Also in 2011, METRO, working closely with the city of Tempe, will convene a community working group to help technical staff define the vehicle, stop locations and street configuration of the future streetcar project. At the same time, METRO will begin its application to the Federal Transit Administration for grant dollars. Construction is slated to begin in 2013 and operations in 2016.

For more information, including maps, collateral material and FAQs, on Tempe Streetcar, visit www.metrolightrail.org/tempesouth.

Mulkey Engineers & Consultants Announces Three New Board Members

2011-03-13T18:02:00.000-07:00

Three people have joined Mulkey Engineers & Consultants’ board of directors, including Loren Sokolow, Teresa Helmlinger Ratcliff and William G. Marley, Jr.

Loren Sokolow, CFO and treasurer of Los Angeles-based Psomas, an employee-owned civil engineering and surveying company, has more than 20 years experience as a financial and operations executive. Sokolow will advise and direct Mulkey financially with his consistent record of streamlining business operations and increasing profits.

Teresa Helmlinger Ratcliff, PhD, PE, assistant vice chancellor, extension and engagement for North Carolina State University, is responsible for directing all facets of business in the nation’s first university engineering extension service. As executive director of the Industrial Extension Service (IES) at NC State, she leads the effort to offer technical and technology management assistance to businesses and industries across the state of North Carolina. Mulkey will benefit from her knowledge of current and up-to-date software and technology. A graduate of North Carolina State University and Duke University, Ratcliff is the only North Carolinian and only woman to have served as president of the National Society of Professional Engineers. She currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of the North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors.

William (Bill) Marley, PE, PLS, has more than 42 years of civil engineering experience, specifically highway planning, design, construction, maintenance, and management. Most recently, Marley served as VP/area manager of Parsons Inc. in their Raleigh, NC office. Prior to that, Marley was the state highway administrator for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, where he retired from service after 31 years. Marley’s experience and knowledge will provide Mulkey with insight into transportation planning and design.

Mulkey Engineers & Consultants is a full-service engineering firm that employs 125-plus employees with offices in Raleigh, and Charlotte, NC; Newberry, SC; and Atlanta, GA. Services include land development, building structures, surveying, subsurface utility engineering, environmental, special inspections, transportation, and construction services. The firm serves both public and private clients including municipalities, state departments of transportation, colleges and universities, local and national architects and developers, commercial entities, and community organizations. To learn more, visitwww.mulkeyinc.com.

Engineering Firm Seeks Division Manager in Tennessee

2011-02-11T09:41:00.000-08:00

Progressive Engineer Magazine has received the following new posting in its Engineer's Job Market:

Division Manager, Tennessee

Now is the time to capitalize on your years of hard work and experience in Tennessee’s transportation industry. The Corradino Group, Inc., an engineering, planning, environmental, aviation, and construction management firm with offices in Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Florida, is recruiting a senior engineer to lead its Tennessee practice. For over 40 years, Corradino has managed some of the largest infrastructure projects in the United States as described on the firm’s Web site (www.corradino.com).

The Division Manager for Tennessee will work with Corradino’s senior management in growing the practice in the state. This includes staffing an office in the Nashville area, recruiting, and participating in advancing potential merger/acquisition opportunities in Tennessee.

REQUIREMENTS
Must be a registered engineer in Tennessee, live in or recently have resided in Tennessee, and be willing to live in the Nashville area. The position requires at least 15 years experience in Tennessee planning, design, environmental (project development & engineering), and/or construction engineering areas of practice. TDOT experience and association are critical to filling this position. The Division Manager will manage multiple projects, coordinate with staff company-wide, promote Corradino’s services to a varied client base, and be responsible for business management and development in the market. Travel throughout Tennessee will be required, as will attending meetings in Corradino’s other markets.

COMPANY BENEFITS
Corradino’s benefit package includes: 100-percent-Corradino-paid employee medical insurance premium, dental, company-provided life insurance, short- and long-term disability, 401(k) savings plan with a Corradino match, and flexible spending accounts. Corradino’s Division Manager salaries and bonuses are competitive with the industry for experienced, senior level managers. Corradino offers this position a company-provided vehicle or vehicle allowance and relocation expenses (if needed).

Please respond with cover letter, salary requirement, and resume to HR: ebingham@corradino.com or fax: 502/587-2636.

Progressive Engineer Posts a New Feature and Adds New Pages

2011-01-24T05:47:00.000-08:00

Progressive Engineer magazine has recently posted a new feature article on the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, NC., the first hotel in the country to achieve LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Its designers tell how they developed it, integrating the area's textile industry heritage, and embarked on a program to monitor and verify energy use.

Publisher and Editor Tom Gibson announces that the online magazine has also introduced two new pages to its website in recent months. One describes how engineering firms operate and how to select one if you seek engineering services. "This complements our Engineering Firm Directory and can assist those using it." The other is a directory of online and distance engineering education programs, which those looking to further their education can use in attaining an engineering degree or meeting requirements for continuing education. "Such programs have become increasingly popular as engineers strive to advance their education while staying on the job and continuing their career and raising a family. Online programs allow them to do this."

Gibson also adds that the magazine has changed its editorial approach slightly. "Previously, we operated according to a regimented, systematic editorial criteria and schedule that assured subject and geographic diversity with a new posting every month. Now we're taking more of a roving freelance approach and seeking out the best stories about engineers with cool jobs, wherever and whatever they may be. Stay tuned to www.ProgressiveEngineer.com."

Clark Dietz Introduces New Service Group

2010-11-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

Consulting engineering firm Clark Dietz, Inc. has established a construction services group to enhance and support its existing transportation groups in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

Chester Kochan, P.E., has been promoted to group manager and brings over 20 years of experience in the supervision of construction services for bridge and highway projects. Kochan is currently overseeing many major projects including:

· Rehabilitation of the 103^rd, 111^th, 112^th, 115^th, and 125^thStreet bridges over I-57 in Chicago

· 22^nd Street reconstruction in Oakbrook Terrace, IL

· Traffic signal interconnect projects in DuPage County, IL

Clark Dietz engages in transportation, civil, environmental, mechanical, electrical, and structural engineering with over 140 professional staff members in regional offices in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Geotechnical Services Expands to Fort Collins

2010-11-22T09:12:00.000-08:00

Geotechnical Services, Inc. (GSI) has expanded its operations to include a new office in Fort Collins, Colorado. GSI provides geotechnical engineering services in the Midwest with seven other offices in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. Heading up the Fort Collins branch office is newly named vice president Robin Dornfest, a 10-year veteran in the fields of geotechnical engineering and engineering geology and a Fort Collins resident since 2000. “I’m excited to lead GSI’s efforts here in Fort Collins,” says Dornfest. Dornfest has worked on a variety of projects throughout the U.S., including dams and reservoirs, large public works, earth retention and dewatering, and geologic hazard evaluation and mitigation.

“We were already doing a lot of work in Colorado and southern Wyoming,” says GSI President Chuck Brewer. “The addition of the new Fort Collins office allows GSI to better serve these areas. Dornfest knows the subsurface geology of the region and its potential for impacting projects.”

Geotechnical Services is a veteran-owned consulting firm specializing in geotechnical engineering, environmental services, professional drilling, construction materials testing (CMT), and special inspection services.

Century Engineering Announces its Latest LEED Gold Certified Project

2010-11-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

Century Engineering, Inc. has announced its latest LEED Gold Certified project: The Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center. This certification marks the first museum in Pennsylvania and only fourth in the nation to achieve LEED Gold Certification. The $95-million Museum & Visitor’s Center accommodates approximately two million visitors a year.

Century provided mechanical engineering services including the design of heating, cooling, and ventilation systems for the nearly 250,000 square feet of visitor galleries, exhibit space, food service areas, and theaters in the new museum, including ground source heat exchange technologies (geothermal heating and cooling system). This latter system is one of the largest on the East Coast and will help to reduce the annual energy costs of the museum by nearly 50 percent.

Century Engineering is a multidiscipline engineering firm providing a range of design and construction engineering services to government agencies and various private industries throughout the United States. Century is headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland with offices in Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Urban Engineers Celebrates 50 Years

2010-11-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

Urban Engineers, Inc. is celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year. In that time, Urban has engaged in regional planning, engineering design, environmental services and construction management. Areas of expertise include: aviation, bridges, highways, marine, program management, railroads, transit, traffic/ITS, environmental, urban planning, land development, and litigation support.

On August 1,1960, from the dissolution of Lawrence T. Beck and Associates due to bankruptcy, Urban Engineers was established by Robert Olson, P.E., president; Edward D'Alba, P.E., vice president ; and K. Yervant Terzian, P.E., secretary/treasurer. The founders set up their business in a row house at 1619 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. The Firm retained and completed several of Beck’s existing contracts. Urban focused its early work on highway, building, and bridge design, including such notable projects as the Delaware Expressway (I-95) and the Philadelphia Planning Commission’s urban renewal initiative, led by Edmund Bacon, whose design ideas helped shape the Philadelphia of today. D’Alba recalls, “Smaller projects were welcome too, like the mapping of underground utilities for the City of Philadelphia. This 'shelf work' kept the firm busy when major projects were slow to come.”

According to D’Alba, the founders were intimately involved in all aspects of the business. Each principal leader was responsible for an area of the firm - Olson for administration and sales, D’Alba for highways, and Terzian for bridge and building design. D’Alba recalls, “We were the chief, cook, and bottle washer. While we promoted work, managed projects, and administered the business, we also took turns emptying the trash baskets.” In 1993, principal ownership was transferred to the current leadership duo of Edward D’Alba, P.E., president and Joseph McAtee, P.E., executive vice president.

Today, Urban is a privately owned firm (ESOP) approaching 500 people in ten regional offices in seven states, with offices in Philadelphia, Mechanicsburg, and Erie, Pennsylvania; Cherry Hill, New Jersey; New Castle, Delaware; Baltimore, Maryland; Hartford, Connecticut; Dallas, Texas; and New York City and Buffalo, New York.

Some of the firm's most challenging and exciting projects currently underway include:

- Project management oversight of FTA Mega-Rail Projects: East Side Access and Second Avenue Subway (NYC)

- Walt Whitman Bridge re-decking (Philadelphia, PA)

- New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway widening

- New York City Economic Development Corporation’s South Bronx Greenway Project (NYC)

- $4 billion Guam Infrastructure and Improvement Program

With the need to rebuild America’s infrastructure, Urban’s future looks bright. D’Alba states, “Three Leaders, four employees, a lucky seven in total, rolled the dice and began a journey that has now lasted 50 years and shows no signs of slowing. The Urban family was groomed in the last fifty to be the best in the next fifty.”