Archives
September 19, 2008
Issue #88
BE Newsletter
Read the latest issue of BE Magazine
This issue sponsored by:
 |
|
Award competitions
Progressive Architectural Awards
The 56th annual P/A Awards recognize unbuilt projects that demonstrate overall design excellence and innovation. Judging will take place in October 2008. Winning entries will be notified in November 2008, honored at a celebration in New York in January 2009, and published in the January 2009 issue of ARCHITECT. Entries must be postmarked by Sept. 19 or Sept. 23 (late fee applies).
>> more
Events
Structural Engineers Buildings Conference and Expo
Oct. 2-3, Atlanta, Ga.
The Structural Engineers Building Conference and Expo is the only annual conference to focus on both the technical issues and management issues in the successful completion of buildings. The conference program incorporates topics that are timely and important to today’s structural engineers, including virtual building tools, technical design and analysis, the latest codes and guidelines, risk and liability issues, market opportunity, and project management and business strategies.
>> more
Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC)
Oct. 18-22, Chicago
WEFTEC, the largest water quality event in North America, offers the best water-quality education and training available today and is a leading source for water-quality developments, research, regulations, solutions, and cutting-edge technologies.
>>more
National Council of Structural Engineers Associations
Sixteenth Annual Conference
Oct. 23-25, Cleveland, Ohio
The National Council of Structural Engineers Associations (NCSEA) serves to advance the practice of structural engineering and, as the national voice for practicing structural engineers, protect the public’s right to safe, sustainable, and cost-effective buildings, bridges, and other structures. Information about this year’s conference will be posted as it is released.
>> more
FIATECH Annual Members Meeting
Oct. 27-29, Boston, Mass.
The theme of the fall members meeting is “Creating Sustainable Business Value: Deploying Innovative Technologies.” Through meetings and workshops at this members-only event, FIATECH will identify hands-on approaches to deploying state-of-the-art and emerging technologies and solutions that will significantly improve the business effectiveness of the capital project industry and enable members to create sustainable business value in their companies.
>> more
Roads and Bridges User Conference
Nov. 3-5, Scottsdale, Ariz.
Bentley’s Roads and Bridges User Conference offers new and experienced users a wealth of training and opportunities to increase their product knowledge, refine their skills, and network with key industry peers, experts, and Bentley professionals. It’s a convenient, low-cost means to earn professional learning units through hands-on workshops and presentations that deliver the latest in software integration, functionality, and cutting-edge techniques.
>> more
Roads and Bridges User Conference
Dec. 15-17, Hollywood, Fla.
Bentley’s Roads and Bridges User Conference offers new and experienced users a wealth of training and opportunities to increase their product knowledge, refine their skills, and network with key industry peers, experts, and Bentley professionals. It’s a convenient, low-cost means to earn professional learning units through hands-on workshops and presentations that deliver the latest in software integration, functionality, and cutting-edge techniques.
>> more
The New daratechPLANT 15th Annual Plant Industries Conference: Meeting the Challenges – Technologies and Processes in the New Plant World
Feb. 23-25, 2009, Houston, Texas
The daratechPLANT 2009 conference represents a unique source for understanding the evolving strategies and technologies for the plant industries, including process, power, oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and shipbuilding. The conference delivers three tracks – Thought Leadership, Pulse of the Industry, and State of the Practice – to help identify and explore the dynamics of the industry.
>> more
Back to Index
AEC and GIS news
Sustainable buildings don’t have to be ugly
A perfect example is the California Academy of Sciences, opening later this month in San Francisco, replacing the old science museum that was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It was designed by Renzo Piano, whose trademark gifts for inventive design and great craftsmanship seem to make the sustainable elements disappear. “Making green buildings is a practical answer,” Piano says. “But architecture is about desire; it’s about dreams.” The author of this article looks forward “to a future when green architecture won’t be discretionary but required of every architect and builder. Then we could all shut up about it. Sustainable features would become as exciting as the plumbing systems and as essential as a roof that keeps out the rain.”
>> more
Mulkey Engineers & Consultants encourages students to discover engineering
The employees of Mulkey Engineers & Consultants, a full-service civil engineering and consulting firm, are reaching out to middle school, high school, and college students to encourage them to explore the field of civil engineering and support them along their career paths. Engineers at the firm’s five southeast offices are active participants in programs that include mentoring and job shadowing with the overall goal of nurturing and supporting future generations of civil engineers.
>> more
China aims to separate rail for goods and people
China is planning to make a high-speed rail line linking Beijing and Shanghai the world’s fastest when it opens in 2012. The Chinese-designed trains making the trip will be capable of speeds up to 236 miles an hour.
>> more
Lifecycle assessment and structural engineering practice
The myriad details of sustainable design can be dizzying at times – materials certification, recycled content, local materials, rapidly renewable materials, and construction waste management, to name a few. Lifecycle assessment (LCA) provides a framework for all of those details and helps building design professionals and their clients see the big picture of sustainability. LCA is a method of measuring a structure’s various environmental impacts from its creation with the extraction of raw resources used to create building materials to its demolition or end-of-life. LCA was originally developed to measure the impacts of processes and products, but it is now being applied in the more complex realm of building design, construction, and operation.
>> more http://www.gostructural.com/article.asp?id=3101
Study ranks states on road conditions
The annual Reason Foundation study measures each state’s road conditions and expenditures. The Reason Foundation's 17th Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems measures the condition of all state-owned roads and highways from 1984 to 2006.
The Reason Foundation’s full study is available online. State-by-state rankings are also available, as are the deficient bridges rankings.
U.S. invests in transport for fast-growing cities
Investments in transport will reduce congestion in fast developing areas of the U.S., such as the cities of Charlotte, St. Louis, and Salt Lake City. Central to the reform plan is a new Metropolitan Mobility Program for Charlotte and other major urban areas with populations exceeding half a million people.
>> more (free registration required)
AIA requires sustainability in continuing education
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced that starting in January 2009 it will require its members to complete four hours per year of continuing education focused on sustainable design. This constitutes half of the eight hours required for topics in health, safety, and welfare. The requirement will remain in place until 2012, when it will be reevaluated.
>> more
Shortlist for Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) special awards unveiled
The shortlist for RIBA’s special awards, which will be awarded alongside the Stirling Prize, has been revealed. Judged by specialists in the various fields who visit the shortlisted buildings, the nominees are drawn from winners of the main RIBA awards.
>> more
Back to Index
User stories
The Lagoons
Thompson Ventulett, Stainback & Associates
What was once 1,200 acres of sand will become a spectacular new community combining waterways, harbors, lush landscapes, and dramatic skyscrapers. The conceptual vision is composed of seven islands, thematically representing the seven emirates of the UAE. All buildings in the business district were modeled in MicroStation and then handed off to an outside entity for final visualization. These modeling efforts were vital in the design process to identify form, scale, and proportion relationships of each individual building and its relationship to the site as a whole. Being able to modify such a complex design easily in GenerativeComponents and see the repercussions of these modifications throughout major building systems was critical in moving such a complex project forward through the design process.
>> more projects from The Year in Infrastructure 2007
Click to enlarge image.
Eastern Peripheral Expressway
SPAN Consultants Pvt Ltd
A six-lane road approximately 270 kilometers long is being designed to help free India’s Delhi roads of huge numbers of trucks and buses. The project encompasses 46 bridges, 207 underpasses, 79 culverts, and eight interchanges. Land acquisition was envisioned as the main constraint of the project because it involved 1,860 hectares of land from five districts involving 98 villages. Thus, it was essential to finalize the horizontal alignment as quickly as possible so the land acquisition work could begin. Bentley’s MX software suite was used to help facilitate the alignments. In addition, Bentley’s STAAD software provided detailed structural analysis and design that not only helped overcome the hurdle of land acquisition, but also saved a substantial amount of time, energy, and cost by reducing the number of design repetitions.
>> more projects from The Year in Infrastructure 2007
Click to enlarge image.
Back to Index
Bentley news
Brothers boost family’s scholarship fund at Fitchburg State College
Five brothers from Pennsylvania have teamed up to honor their mother with a gift to Fitchburg State College. The Bentley family has donated $125,000 in memory of Arlene Bentley, a 1952 graduate of the then Fitchburg Teachers College who died in August 2006. The gift will augment an existing scholarship endowment at Fitchburg State named for the brothers’ grandmother, Myra McGuirk-Bonitz, who also attended the college.
>> more
Bridging the gap
One software firm is on a quest to become a one-stop shop for bridge design, build, operation, and maintenance applications. Alexandra Wynn of New Civil Engineer reports on its attempt to do things a little differently.
>> more
Creating a “Water Cube”
Securing the design contract for the National Swimming Center for the Beijing 2008 Olympics was a task worthy of gold medal distinction. But with the help of MicroStation and Bentley Structural software, Arup and architectural firm PTW of Sydney, Australia, together with CSCEC of Beijing and Shenzhen, beat 10 qualifiers for this prestigious, world-class project.
>> more
A “giant” problem solved
Bentley's ProjectWise helped an ageing power plant turn its horrendous maintenance problems around in South Africa.
>> more
Where's the leak?
United Utilities aims to cut water wastage with its innovative research into leakage hotspot prediction.
>> more
The show must go on
Art and science work together to put on an elegant, complex show at a new performing arts center in upstate New York. By using structural steel, Buro Happold’s engineers maintained the perception of lightness for a facility that is actually quite large. Although the space limitations of the architectural forms made it challenging to coordinate the structural and M/E/P systems, the flexibility of steel helped to resolve the complexities of the building.
>> more
Open for business
David Chadwick takes a look at why Bentley's OpenPlant solution has many people in the process plant industry excited so many years after ISO 15926 was first mooted.
>> more
Back to Index
Sponsors
HP delivers workstation technologies that help you work efficiently and reduce costs.
The HP workstation line includes mobile, desktop, and blade workstations. HP offers a choice of processors including Intel dual-core processors or quad-core processors or AMD processors. In addition, HP offers highly secure Blade Workstations, which provide the capability of remote engineering from centralized server-based workstations with powerful 3D performance.
>> Learn more about HP and great deals on HP workstations
>> Learn more about HP and Bentley
The 2008 Fall Members Meeting will be hosted by Keith Roe, chairman, president and CEO of Burns and Roe Enterprises. The theme of this meeting is “Creating Sustainable Business Value: Deploying Innovative Technologies.”
>> more
Back to Index
Anytime, anyplace learning
The Bentley Institute develops and delivers accredited professional training to help busy infrastructure professionals enhance their skills, increase productivity, and stay competitive. Find the training that best fits your needs.
>> more
Recent Bentley press releases and news alerts
Bentley Expands Professional Services for Structural Engineering and Plant Application Users in North America
News Alert: Ministry of Science & Technology and Bentley Launch 2008-2009 Future Cities India 2020 Competition Finals
Bentley’s Forthcoming MicroStation Release to Incorporate Luxology’s Photorealistic Rendering Engine
News Alert: Bentley and United Utilities Project Wins International Water Association Award
News Alert: Bentley’s Innovative Water-Leakage Modeling Software Addresses Billion-Dollar-a-Year Problem
News Alert: Genoa, Italy, Selects Bentley Systems to Facilitate Sustainable Development Plan
Autodesk and Bentley to Advance AEC Software Interoperability
Back to Index
Call for feedback
Something to say?
Send letters and comments to the editor. [mailto:benewsletter@be.org]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ezines
You can revise your subscription settings, or sign up to receive BE Magazine, BE Newsletter, and NewsStreams at http://appsnet.bentley.com/profile/subscriptions.aspx.
Previous issues of BE Newsletter can be found here.
© 2008 Bentley Systems, Incorporated 685 Stockton Drive Exton, PA USA 19341. Bentley, the "B" Bentley logo, BE, Bentley Institute, GenerativeComponents, MX, STAAD, ProjectWise, Future Cities India 2020 and logo, and MicroStation are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated, or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.