ICE - Institution of Civil Engineers - Virtual Library

New ICE president Mark Whitby believes ICE members should be more passionate about their Institution if they want to raise their status in society. He sets out six ways to make this happen.

It is estimated that construction and demolition waste account for nearly 20% of all UK waste. George Fleming, chairman of the ICE waste management board, argues for wastes to be redefined, for landfill taxes to be raised and for better guidelines to be produced.

A successful health, safety, environmental and security policy means never turning a blind eye, according to Colin Smith of Foster Wheeler Energy, a company whose no-compromise approach has resulted in over 50 safety awards in 10 years and a phenomenally low injury rate.

The Association of Consulting Engineers has teamed up with Government, ICE, RIBA and RICS to develop key performance indicators for UK construction consultants. ACE's assistant director, Craig Beaumont, says it pays to measure up.

It has now been demonstrated that construction meetings work better when they are not dominated by a few individuals. Jason Foley and Sebastian Macmillan of Cambridge University reports on a study of meetings on the National Space Centre project, which concluded that a cultural shift to collective decision making is needed.

Mathematics has always been vital to civil engineering. However, Arup chairman Duncan Michael believes it is no longer necessary for every individual engineer to have a high level of mathematical ability to be good at their job.

A new type of concrete has been developed in France which combines the benefits of very high performance, fibre-reinforcement and self-compaction. Rob Williams of the French Technology Press Bureau introduces the new material.

A recent study of major civil engineering design firms in the US and Europe reveals a massive growth in cross-company and cross-border working. Jim Paton of Infrasoft reports on the findings and concludes there is a real need for better collaborative IT systems.

Organic waste from a variety of sources including supermarket produce waste looks set to become a valuable resource in the future. Ben Purcell of WS Atkins reports on a pilot study that demonstrates the potential economic and environmental benefits of co-digesting organic matter with sewage sludge.

A new report on graduate employment reveals that civil engineering graduates ride high in employability stakes but the sector is losing ground to ‘new’ industries. Mike Hill of the Higher Education Careers Services Unit explains.

A 100 m long, disused urban storm tank built in the 1920s is now serving as the foundation for the UK's exciting new National Space Centre on the banks of the River Soar in Leicester. The Millennium Commission funded project has set a new benchmark for urban regeneration, not only for its skillful reuse of redundant infrastructure but also for its innovative approaches to structural design, internal climate control and contamination management. It features a 40 m high ‘bubble-wrapped’ rocket tower, a complex combination of naturally vented and air-conditioned internal spaces and a large, under-vented car-parking area to cover the most contaminated parts of the site.

The replacement of a strategic bridge at a remote, environmentally sensitive location on the UK's main west-coast railway in just five days required a tremendous amount of advance planning. The 135 year old Float viaduct crossing the upper reaches of the River Clyde needed to be replaced as part of Railtrack's upgrade of the busy route to suit 200 km/h electric trains. Working under a fixed-price design-and-construct contract, Carillion and Scott Wilson opted to move both the old bridge deck out and the new bridge deck in by lifting rather than sliding. Apart from the first span initially refusing to move, the meticulously planned project went without a hitch and was completed well within the five-day track possession.

Around 100 000 sites in Britain—a total of 300 000 ha—are contaminated from past industrial activity. Following the completion of a detailed site-identification planning in July 2001, local authorities can now force these sites to be cleaned up under part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990—and the cost may fall to the present occupier if the original polluter cannot be found. Civil engineers stand to benefit significantly, not just from assessing and remediating contaminated sites but also from the much greater level of technical risk-assessment likely to be associated with all future land purchase and development. This paper gives a brief overview of the complex and controversial new regime, and offers some suggestions to overcome some of its more operationally and democratically difficult aspects.

The giant steel-truss rail bridge over the mighty River Danube in Romania is a monument to the country's most revered civil engineer, Anghel Saligny. The technical challenges involved in building 60 m tall piers in 30 m of fast-flowing water and a superstructure that could cope with high winds and low temperatures proved too much for the world's leading civil engineers, none of whom provided a conforming design in two rounds of competition. It was left to Saligny, secretary of the competition, to produce a workable plan—and over 100 years later his ‘King Carol I’ bridge is still in operation.