Eng-Tips Whitepaper Library » Civil/Environmental

Berkeley Zero Net Energy Cottage Deserves Study

Eng-Tips — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:34:44 +0000

Karen Chapple, an associate professor of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley, has built a 450-square-foot cottage that lays claim to “zero net energy status.” With the help of students from UC Berkeley engineering professor Ashok Gadgil’s civil and environmental engineering course and a grant from the UC Transportation Center for further study, Chapple built the cottage this fall for $98,000, and wants to see further development in this housing trend.

Continue reading at San Francisco Chronicle –>

Chlorine Substitutes in Water May Have Risks

Eng-Tips — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:31:50 +0000

Water systems across the country are changing the way they disinfect drinking water because the traditional disinfectant, chlorine, can leave behind toxic chemicals. But alternatives to chlorine are turning out to have risks of their own, says UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering David Sedlak, who wrote an analysis in the journal Science.

Continue reading at National Public Radio –>

UC Researcher Puts Buildings Through Earthquakes

Eng-Tips — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:42:55 +0000

It is an uncomfortable fact for Californians that most of the structures in which we live and work pre-date the latest earthquake building codes. So how will those buildings fare in the next big one and how can we best fix them? Wael Hassan’s dissertation at UC Berkeley looks at older forms of structural engineering to see how they will hold in a major earthquake.

Continue reading at ABC News –>

Autodesk Launches Easy-to-Use, Low-Cost Drawing Software

Eng-Tips — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:54:08 +0000

New AutoCAD Freestyle Creates High-Quality Drawings, Layouts and Plans for Specialty Contractors and Do-It-Yourself Projects

Autodesk, Inc., a world leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, announced the availability of AutoCAD Freestyle software, a new, easy-to-use application for 2D drawing and sketching that specialty contractors and do-it-yourselfers can use to create professional-looking drawings, layouts and plans.

"Many people–from do-it-yourselfers to home contractors to landscape designers–still use pen and paper or software that does not enable accuracy and is hard to use," said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president, Autodesk Platform Solutions and Emerging Business. "AutoCAD Freestyle has been created to meet the needs of these users and anybody else who needs to generate quick, accurate and professional-looking designs without the need for or learning curve of industrial-strength CAD software."

Designed for any task that requires the creation of accurate plans, such as home renovations, gardening or landscape design, AutoCAD Freestyle is simple enough for use by home owners and do-it-yourselfers as well as specialty contractors such as plumbers, electricians and carpenters to create plans and construction documentation. AutoCAD Freestyle is also intended for non-CAD employees who work with architects and engineers, enabling markup and annotation of designs created in AutoCAD software that can be sent back for incorporation into the AutoCAD file with complete DWG compatibility, which helps reduce rework.

Continue reading at MarketWatch –>

Can California Fix the Delta Before Disaster Strikes?

Eng-Tips — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:43:08 +0000

BERKELEY —When visiting Sherman Island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, it is easy to forget the region’s ever-present threat of catastrophic floods and instead revel in the West Coast’s largest estuary, which supports farmers, anglers, and more than 700 native species of plants and animals, including some that are endangered.

(Credit: Video produced by Roxanne Makasdjian, UC Berkeley Media Relations)

"You drive out there and you see that cows are grazing, birds are chirping; but it’s deceptive," said Robert Bea, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. "As you start to dig in, you find out how incredibly complex and vulnerable we’ve made this place."

At least 220 government agencies have jurisdiction in the Delta, which is home to half a million residents in 25 villages, towns and cities, including Sacramento, Stockton and Pittsburg. The region is under continual threat from floods, prevented only by a vast — and fragile — network of earthen levees.

Continue reading at UCBerkeleyNews –>