2002 NOVA Award Winners

Multi-Span Suspended Bridge Platform
Reinforced Concrete Tied-Arch Truss
Interlocking, Mortarless Brick Siding
Ground Penetrating Imaging Radar
Electro-Osmotic Pulse

2002 NOVA Award Finalist

Ice Blast Cleans Surfaces

(click figure to enlarge)

Multi-Span Suspended Bridge Platform
The Safespan multi-span suspended bridge platform literally brings bridge rehabilitation projects to the ground and allows access to numerous spans simultaneously, as shown in underside view of the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal Bridge rehabilitation. A Safespan underbridge installation has highly tensioned main cables that directly support a corrugated steel work platform. The main cables are stretched like guitar strings from bridge pier to bridge pier, often hundreds of feet. These cables are vertically supported by hangers attached to the bridge structure above at about 20 foot intervals. The work platform panels are 3 foot by 11 foot corrugated steel panels with 6 inch interlocking overlap on all four sides and locked to the main cables below in six locations to form a continuous work platform. A railing is installed with a toe board. Tarps can be added for complete containment.
     First used on Robert Moses Bridge, a 25 span, 4,200 ft structure  with winds to 70 miles per hour, the work platform was 30 feet by 1,100 feet with complete containment. Winning bid was low by $700,000, and construction saved 4 months from 17 month duration. The platform is easily installed and removed, and components are complete reusable. Simultaneous access for multiple trades over entire work area improves productivity and decreases duration. Easy containment protects pedestrians, vehicles, and land below from demolition debris and dust for easy clean up and disposal, and it also lengthens the work season. Safespan has been used on well over 100 bridges, including such high-profile bridges as the Golden Gate Bridge, Oakland Bay Bridge, Mackinac Bridge, Ambassador Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and the Firth of Forth Bridge in Scotland.

Primarily Responsible:
Lambros Apostolopoulus
David Malcolm

Contact: Lambros Apostolopoulos
Safespan Platform Systems, Inc.
252 Fillmore Avenue
Tonawanda, NY 14150-2408
Phone: 716-694-1100
Fax:    716-694-1188
Email: info@safespan.com
Web: www.safespan.com

Chesapeake-Delaware Canal Bridge

Laying Platform on Cables

Henry Hudson Bridge

George Washington Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge

Firth of Forth Bridge

(click figure to enlarge)

Reinforced Concrete Tied-Arch Truss
The new, $84 million arena in downtown New Orleans seats about 18,000 people for professional hockey and basketball games, concerts, and other events not suited for the larger Superdome located nearby. Large steel trusses would normally have been used to span the arena and support the roof. However, at the time there were rising steel prices and long lead times for structural steel, which led to an alternate solution. The engineer chose to combine two long-proven technologies, the concrete tied-arch bridge and the queen-post truss, to provide a new, practical structural concept for the arena.
     Concrete arch bridges combine the compression capacity of concrete to arch over a river with the tension capacity of steel to tie the ends of the arch together. The queen-post truss, typically constructed of timber or steel, provides a compatible structure and its shape provides an attractive mansard roof line.  The primary innovation was the new use of concrete for the upper chord compression members in combination with structural steel for the lower chord tension, as in a concrete tied arch bridge, to form a queen-post truss.
     Another innovation was using a hollow core box girder for the concrete top chord compression member to reduce roof weight yet provide high structural efficiency. The concrete box girder sections were cast in sections on the floor of the arena below their final position. The box girders were then hoisted into position and set on erection towers until the entire roof structure was complete. Open web trusses that support the roof were brought together at the queen post position, so that no roof load is directly supported by the concrete box girder top chord. This puts the concrete top chord in pure compression, another innovation. Cost estimates showed a $430,000 savings in the final erected cost using the concrete tied-arch system instead of steel.

Primarily responsible:
Douglas Ashcraft, P.E., S.E.
Arthur Q. Davis, FAIA
Bob Derr
Lawrence Griffis, P.E.
Kurt Hagstette
Steve Hegyesi
Shatha Lingle, P.E.
Jerry Smith
Fred Williams

Contact: Lawrence G. Griffis, P.E.
Walter P. Moore and Associates, Inc.
3131 Eastside
Houston, TX 77098
Phone: 713-630-7300
Fax:      713-630-7386
Email: lgriffis@walterpmoore.com
Web: www.walterpmoore.com

New Orleans Arena

Tied-Arch Truss

Box Girder

Erection

Aerial View

(click figures to enlarge)

Interlocking Mortarless Brick Siding
Novabrik is a patented mortarless brick siding system of 3 inch by 3 inch by 8 inch tongue and groove units made of high strength concrete. This is not a lightweight material. The units overlap and interlock to create a strong, water resistant brick veneer. Units are stacked to overlap, and they are fastened to the wall furring every fourth row in height with corrosion-resistant screws. Novabrik can be installed on wood stud walls, steel stud walls, concrete and concrete block walls, and metal buildings.
     Novabrik can replace existing siding on any type of building structure (wood, steel, or concrete) by removing the existing siding and installing Novabrik on the structure. Because of its special design, no foundation or brick ledge is required. Therefore, Novabrik can be installed directly on the existing strapping of the building structure. If the building does not have the required strapping or furring, installation of the strapping is relatively easy. Novabrik can then be installed without much brick laying skills.
    Installation does not require skilled labor, it is 25% faster than brick, and it can be done in below freezing temperatures. Novabrik is approved by American and Canadian building codes, and other code approvals are underway in Asia and Europe It is ever more widely used in US and Canada for fine residences and industrial and commercial buildings.

Primarily responsible:
Michael Bouchard
Simon Gauthier
Luc Vaillancourt
Besser-Proneq, Inc.

Contact: Simon Gauthier
Novabrik International, Inc.
8138 Metropolitan East
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H1K 1A1
Phone: 514-355-0112
        1-800-265-2522
Fax:     514-355-2922
Email: sgauthier@novabrikcanada.com
Web: www.novabrik.com.

Project Schedule

Custom Communications

Installation Details

Over Old Siding

Kinsmen House

IGA Store

(click figures to enlarge)

Ground Penetrating Imaging Radar (GPiR)
GPIR maps the shallow subsurface, including underground infrastructure. It is like a CAT-scan for the underground, as in the horizontal cross-sections at the surface in the first figure, at 12 inches down showing buried railroad tracks, and at 24 inches down showing conduits below the tracks. Generally, test pits are dug to find out what is underground, which takes a lot of time and are expensive. The new alternative is a virtual test pit or view of subsurface objects by GPIR. GPIR sees down about 6 feet in typical soils and up to 20 feet in dry, sandy soils. Digital images show objects as small as 2 inches in size and fix positions within 1 inch. The subsurface is scanned with an antennae array towed on a trailer or mounted on the front of a small tractor.
     A 3D image beneath a street in Tampa Bay, Florida shows a plastic PVC water pipe at 36 inches, with a water lateral leaving the main line just before a main line valve. The towed antennae array survey  covered an area 6 feet wide by 500 feet long in 15 minutes. The 3D image was produced on site 30 minutes later.  The first Jacksonville figure is a subsurface map of Bay Street at Clay Street in Jacksonville, Florida s down to 6 feet, color-coded by depth. Objects interpreted from scans are street patches 6 inches deep, railroad tracks at 12 inches, railroad ties at 18 inches, utility lines at 36 inches, and other items not defined well enough to be identified. The second figure shows objects from the imaging radar map integrated with the CAD drawings to show the covered tracks and water line
     Radar scans of Church Street next to Ground Zero in New York City following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center show that actual locations of underground utilities, overlaid in black, differ substantially from locations shown on earlier maps.

Primarily responsible:
Ralph Bernstein
Maclyn Burns
Anthony DeRubeis
Robert Green
Bernth Johannson
Douglas Miller
Michael Oristaglio

Contact: Michael Oristaglio
Witten Technologies, Inc
295 Huntington Ave, Suite 203
Boston, MA 02115
Phone: 617-236-0019
Fax      617-236- 0032
Email: m.oristaglio@wittentech.com
Web: www.wittentech.com

Cross Sections

Virtual Test Pit

Tampa Bay


Jacksonville, Florida

Near Ground Zero
 
(click figures to enlarge)

Electro-Osmotic Pulse (EOP)
The EOP system prevents or reverses groundwater intrusion through sub-grade concrete walls and floors. EOP is based on electro-osmosis, in which an electrically charged liquid, in this case water, moves under the influence of an external electrical field. Water and ions form an electrolyte where the positive ions, small green circles in the Concept figure, are attracted by the negative charge of the red cathode and move through the microscopic pores of the soil, from left to right, carrying water molecules with them.
   The Basement Wall - Soil figure shows a cross section of a concrete basement wall to the left and soil against the basement wall on the right. The positive anode is inserted in the basement side of the concrete wall and the negative cathode is inserted into the soil outside the wall. A pulsing DC voltage draws the cations, shown red, and their attached water molecules, shown blue, from left to right, from the basement side of the wall to the soil side, which dries the basement side out.
   A primary innovation is development of a patented ceramic-coated anode only 1/8 inch in diameter that fits easily in grooves cut by a standard concrete saw. Because the ceramic-coated anode does not lose material or change shape over time, it allows for improved placement and a virtually infinite life. A typical installation can start with a concrete saw cut on the interior surface of the basement wall and floor slab in which to embed the wire anode. Cathodes are inserted into holes drilled in soil, either vertically outside the basement wall as shown in green or through the basement wall or floor as shown in blue and red.
   Another primary innovation of EOP is the asymmetric dual polarity wave form of the voltage pulse. A long voltage pulse (green) is followed by a short voltage pulse in the opposite direction (red). The long pulse moves water to dry the basement, but the short pulse helps retain some water in the concrete to maintain its strength.
   EOP technology has proven 100% effective in mitigating water intrusion in below-grade structures. Every properly installed system has successfully ended moisture seepage. Its effects are long-term, and EOP systems are expected to last for a structure’s service life with no further maintenance.

Primarily responsible:
Matthew Brady
Philip H. Chitty
Micheal Connor
Sondra Cooper
Vincet F. Hock
John P. Klus, Ph.D.
Bjorn Koritz
Philip G. Malone, Ph.D.,
Charles P. Marsh, Ph.D.
Michael K. McInerney, P.E.
Sean Morefield
Ray Slaback
Charles A. Weiss, Jr., Ph.D.

Contact: Vincent F. Hock
U.S. Army ERDC-CERL
P.O. Box 9005
Champaign, IL 61826-9005
Phone: 217-373-6753
Fax:     217-373-6732
Email: v-hock@cecer.army.mil
Web: www.cecer.army.mil/eop

Concept

 Basement Wall         Soil
Ceramic-Coated Anode

Cathodes in Soil

Pulse Wave Form

Before and After

(click figures to enlarge)

Ice Blast Cleans Surfaces
Ice blast technology combines electrical and mechanical components in a machine that uses ice pellets for pressure cleaning. Ice particles are made continuously from an immersed cold drum to form a pre-stressed ice sheet that then self-fractures into small ice particles. Ice particles are fluidized and transferred via suction to a pressurized nozzle for blasting to clean a material surface. The technology uses “warm” air, 5-10° C, for fluidizing to prevent ice agglomeration and ice blockages. The ice pellets first hit the target surface to loosen materials. The melted ice scrubs the surface and then turns into liquid to wash off the surface.
     In removing loose lead paint for encapsulation, the US Navy has realized more than 50% savings over its typical manual labor practice. Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and University of Washington used ice blasting for lead paint abatement. St. Louis used ice blasting to remove lead paint from a VA hospital. The Dutch Ministry of Transportation realized 55% cost savings over high-pressure water blasting in removing barnacles from giant pumps. Santa Monica uses ice blasting for cleaning beach houses and removing graffiti and chewing gum from school grounds. Ice blasting has been used in nuclear maintenance to reduce radiation hazards prior to service, thereby achieving significant dose savings. For lead paint abatement of steel highway structures, the NYSDOT uses ice blasting for cost-effective control of airborne lead dust, particulate emission and dispersion, and waste minimization. In petrochemical plants, the innovation offers equipment cleaning without chemicals and reduces waste typically generated by high pressure water blasting. Kuwait Petroleum in Europort, Holland uses ice blasting to clean furnaces and equipment in general.

Contact: Sam Visaisouk, Ph.D
Universal Ice Blast, Inc.
533 6th Street South
Kirkland, WA 98033
Phone: 425-893-8424
Fax:     425-893-9222
Email: visa@iceblast.net
Web: www.iceblast.net

MX-90 Unit

Ice Blast Process

Parrington Hall

NYSDOT Steel Bridge

Berkeley High School

Fire Damage

Figures Are After Ice Blast
(click figures to enlarge)

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This page written 05/09/02 by RICarr