Saturday, February 24, 2007

CIVIL ENGINEERING TRENDS

GLOBAL WARMING…….It’s a hot buzzword today, though the process had started long back. Anyway, we have to face the consequences.

And what may that be? More superhurricanes, more storm surges, more spells of drought, etc. In short, more Hurricane Katrinas.

So, what would save us from these Acts of Nature? More robust civil engineering designs.

Think Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans was flooded because of faulty analysis of the strength of the levee system. To be more specific, the levee system on the side of Lake Pontchatrain.

Once that broke, it was a CHAIN REACTION.

So, civil engineers would have to study more intensely geotechnical aspects of a design. (The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers had, in fact, warned previously of such a scenario. So had Al Gore).

What-if scenarios would require much better designed software. Software that are not only tested in a conventional flow tank. The software could not predict flooding on such a massive scale and the loss of 2000 lives.

So, in the near future, we would see intense research in areas of civil engineering. Major cities are on ocean fronts. They face the threat of superhurricanes to supercyclones. (A supercyclone wrecked havoc in Paradip in India).

…….more in the next episode

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