With the Olympics in full swing, Curling on TV at least six hours a day and National Engineers Week Foundation launching their Women in Engineering Marathon on March 10th, what better time for us to speak with Darcy, a Civil Engineer Technologist from Western Canada? Darcy and I spoke about house building, being a woman in a man’s world and the international phenomenon known as Curling.

K Exchange: First off Darcy, thanks for agreeing to speak with us. Can you tell us what made you want to be an Engineer?
Darcy:  My whole family, immediate and extended, have worked in construction for as long as I can remember.  My dad worked for one of the largest industrial engineering and procurement companies in the world before he retired; his brother owns a medium sized industrial insulation company in the West, my grandfather built refineries for the likes of Shell and Imperial Oil when he was alive.

I’ve always just assumed that I would go into construction.  Unlike the rest of my family, I’m in residential.  I like that it’s more tangible than commercial or industrial construction.  When I say I design roofs, people know what I’m talking about.

I’m not actually an engineer, though.  I’m a Civil Engineer Technologist, which means I have a diploma (two years of study) in Civil Engineering.  My degree is actually in Business Management.

What type of work do you do?
Darcy: I work for a company that supplies residential housing.  We design/supply Ready to Move (RTM) homes, in addition to roof systems, floor systems, house packages, blueprints and buildings supplies.  My particular area of work involves roof design.

KX: Why did you choose to go into residential roof design? Is it what you went to school for?
Darcy: I chose this field because they had the best offer upon graduation! As I said, I’ve completed a diploma in Civil Engineering.  How much my schooling actually applies to the real world is up for debate; this industry is very software specific – your time is spent first learning how to use it and then designing with it.

Now, having said that, I use trigonometry daily.  I also use my statistics classes quite frequently when working out loading and load dynamics on roofs.  You never know, sitting in a class, what information will actually be useful to you.  I’m as surprised as anyone else that I rely on trigonometry and force diagrams to understand my daily job!

I lucked out with this job, big time.  Our office has two P.Eng’s and several C.E.T.s (Certified Engineering Technologists) who have been in the industry forever.  They can always find the most economical way to build/design something, and they’re very aware of the big picture; they don’t just look at the floors or the roofs or whatever – they’ll analyze the whole structure and make sure it’s acceptable.  This is rare, and a great environment to learn in.

KX: If you couldn’t be working as an Engineer, what would you like to be doing?
Darcy: Teaching college or university.  I’m taking a master’s degree in Human Security and Peacebuilding (essentially a political science mixed with mediation and international law degree). I spent about six months in 2008 teaching in Africa; I like teaching and I think I’m good at it.  I’m still toying with the idea of doing a PhD.  If I ever do, you can rest assured it will be in a wholly unrelated field.

KX: Back to what you are doing, what kind of projects have you worked on? What has been your favorite?
Darcy: The most memorable one for me was designing a house where the roof was a giant loft.  The trusses themselves sat on the floor of the structure (as opposed to the walls), and everything had massive vaults running through it, including the dormers.  Given that it was a loft/attic space we were trying to squeeze as much ceiling height out of every possible nook and cranny.  It was extremely difficult to design, and it involved so much back-and-forth with the homeowner that he and I eventually became friends.  I still chat with him on Facebook!  You know it’s been a long project when you can claim that about your customers.

Beyond that, I design roofs for any residential application; the repetitive houses in the new subdivisions, additions to older homes, you name it.

KX: Can you tell us anything about really innovative design work going on now? What kind of work has inspired you?
Darcy: There’s a great group of people called the Western Wood Truss Association.  They put on an exhibition every year, and new products and ideas are showcased there.  Things that jump out to me are stuff like:

• Using green material to treat lumber
• Standardizing the LEED criteria (there are a number of ‘green’ certifications out on the market; there is an effort to standardize things, so that it’s a comprehensive list that everyone is aware of rather than having 10 or 12 different acronyms that kind of do the same thing)

Change is slow, though, because framers and designers like to stick with what they know will work, rather than maybe losing money on a fad that could turn out to be not profitable or – worse – unsafe.

KX: I think it’s safe to say that your industry is stereotypically male dominated. Have you found this to be the case?
Darcy: Yes.  I’ve only ever seen one other female roof designer.  Everyone in our office except our receptionist/office manager is male, and so far all my customers have been men.

KX: Has it ever been an issue?
Darcy: I can honestly say that I’ve never, ever felt that I was at an advantage/disadvantage because of my gender.  Really, it’s a non-issue here.

KX: Finally, with the Olympics taking center stage in your own backyard, I have to ask a few questions. How do you feel about Team Canada’s hockey team? Or will you, right now dispel that myth that all Canadian’s love hockey? And even more importantly, what is the deal with Curling, and why can’t I stop watching it?
Darcy: I really can’t comment on curling or hockey.  I don’t watch either sport.  Now, if you’d like, we can do an interview on my thoughts regarding NASCAR. If I must comment on hockey, I’ll say that we kick United States butts!

Last week Knovel convened a panel of sustainability experts at The Discovery Science Center in Anaheim to provide engineers a forum to learn, share and collaborate on the subject. The event, co-sponsored by our partner Elsevier, attracted a motivated and enthusiastic crowd that lingered long after the panel discussion. Some, in fact, drove more than an hour and a half to attend. Although, that had more do to with LA traffic than distance.

The title of the session, “Green Engineering, Sustainability and Its Impact on Design and Engineering,” evokes a range of opinions based upon personal experience, so the panelists opened with introductions and remarks about what Green means today. The Q&A based discussion covered a range of topics including cradle-to-grave design, policy & standards, US competitiveness, business drivers and, of course, money.

We polled the audience throughout the session to determine corporate expectations and priorities with respect to sustainability. When asked, “how important is sustainability for your organization/company,” 16% of attendees indicated top priority, 28% indicated very important and 35% indicated important.

One of my favorite quotes is by Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”  Yes, it’s a bit altruistic, but it’s true and inspiring. Often change is made by an individual, not a company. Grass roots efforts will likely continue to lead sustainability initiatives. Companies and respective leaders want to understand the economic viability of “green.”  We can all take a role in that educational/learning process. This includes collaborating with peers and colleagues to share knowledge.

On the topic of economic viability, one example discussed during the session was the availability of green cleaning products. Until people vote with their dollars and buy green products, why would a company drop a profitable and established product line? They would not.

We all have the opportunity to make responsible decisions and lead initiatives. The current economy is driving a “less is more spirit” and innovation.  With information people make better decisions. Before I knew about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, I didn’t think much about using plastic grocery bags or water bottles. Now when asked “paper or plastic,” I cringe. Yes, I still use plastic bags and drink bottles of water, but I also recycle and use less when I can. Ignorance is bliss.

In many ways, California is positioned to lead with environmental initiatives- not just on the consumer level. Is the conversation different in other cities/states? What are you working on?

For those not able to join us in sunny southern CA, we recorded the session and will make segments available online shortly. We hope you will continue to engage in the discussion of sustainability. Keep in mind, we offer a wealth of information in our Sustainable Energy and Development subject area. That should get you started.

There are certain advantages to being friends with a weatherman. As anyone living in the Northeastern United States can attest, many of us have been glued to The Weather Channel for the past week trying to gauge exactly what the next storm is going to bring.

After two blizzards in the span of a week I spoke with John Cifelli, a meteorologist and the author of John Cifelli’s WeatherNJ. John and I talked about his motivations for working in meteorology and the current whitewash outside our windows.

K Exchange: First off, can you tell us why you wanted to be a weatherman?
John Cifelli: I love snow; the Blizzard of ‘96 was something I’ll never forget. As a boy, watching Niko, my German Shepherd who stood over 6 feet on her hind legs, having to bound like a deer through 4 foot drifts  was just incredible. I wanted to know why, and I wanted to know when it would happen again! I’m also terribly competitive, and I love a challenge. As I entered college, I realized that meteorology offered me the opportunity to satisfy my passion for weather, and the chance to compete with my peers in challenging forecasting situations.

KX: Do you consider yourself a scientist?
JC: A meteorologist is certainly a scientist. From a forecasting perspective, the goal is to analyze a wealth of data, decide what is relevant, what is flawed, and present the most likely solution. It is much more subjective than other sciences in the sense that much of what a weather forecaster looks at is open to interpretation.

KX: What causes a big storm like the one we have now? Is it similar to any other storm?
JC: A snowstorm, like all weather systems, is a result of unequal heating on Earth. The equator receives the bulk of the sun’s energy, while the poles receive the least. A storm represents a heat flux in an attempt to balance this unequal distribution of energy.

KX: What’s involved in actually predicting storms like this? We heard anywhere from 6-10 to 10-18 inches for this storm, how do you arrive at these numbers?
JC: Different meteorologists can look at all the information before them in different ways. There are many different computer models- the NAM, GGEM, ECMWF, GFS just to name a few. They are all governed by the “primitive equations” of the atmosphere, which are physical algorithms for the basic properties of everything going on above you- temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. But they have different spatial scales, resolutions, boundary conditions, and data input.

To make matters more confusing, they run all of these models up to 4 times a day. Then they run models that use the solutions of these primary models as input to give more ideas of what could happen. Then they have ensembles of some of these models, where they tweak one of the equations to show what could happen in a slightly different scenario. The GFS, for example, has over 20 ensembles. All of these projections can vary, sometimes to an extreme extent given a certain timescale. The amount of data a meteorologist has at their disposal is overwhelming, and deciding what is or isn’t useful isn’t always easy.

Specifically for a snowstorm, a forecaster has to consider temperature, wind speed/direction, humidity, and then consider those variables at all levels of the atmosphere, over areas with very unique microclimates (consider the differences between Sparta and Atlantic City in New Jersey) and over considerable periods of time. Then, even if the near term forecast was essentially perfect, I haven’t even touched on chaos theory- what happens at hour 36 and 48 if the forecast was just a little off at 12 or 24.

KX: How is it that, as with Saturday’s storm, Southern NJ can be hit by over a foot of snow, while areas 40 miles north get almost nothing?
JC: Last weekends storm ran into a region of strong confluence in New England that reached down into northern NJ. Confluence is the convergence of streamlines- paths of wind- aloft. In order for any precipitation to occur, there needs to be a lift mechanism to transport air from the surface to higher altitudes where it cools, condenses, and precipitates. Air cannot be lifted into a region of confluence very easily. You can visualize the amassing of air aloft where the streamlines converge. How are you going to lift more air into an area that already has too much? As a result, confluence leads to sinking air at the surface, the opposite of what you need for rain or snow. South Jersey didn’t have this sinking air regime, so the gradient of haves to have-nots with regards to snow was pretty tight.

KX: Is it unusual for an area to be hit by two storms of this size in such a short period of time?
JC: To have back to back blizzards isn’t just unusual, it’s historic. These storms, combined with the  snowstorm on December 19th put this season in the highest echelon of mid-Atlantic winters. This winter is already a 1 in 50 years type event for people in the Baltimore-Philadelphia corridor. Tack on a late season snowfall or two, and this could end up being a once in a lifetime winter. Truly, history in the making.

John Cifelli has produced forecasts specifically for New Jersey and surrounding metro areas since 2004. You can join his weather newsletter John Cifelli’s WeatherNJ by contacting him at johncifelli@gmail.com.

Last week I spoke with John Patrick after reading a post on his blog regarding Genesys XVI. I got in touch with John to get more insights into the past, present and future of the internet.

John is a former Vice President of Internet Technology with IBM, and currently serves as president of Attitude LLC. John is also the author of Net Attitude, an essential primer on e-business strategies. John has served on Knovel’s Board of Directors since 1992.

K Exchange: First off thank you for agreeing to interview with us. To start with, I have to get your impressions on the topic-of-the moment, the Apple iPad. To me, it seems way more evolutionary compared to the then-revolutionary iPhone. By extension, is the iPad just a larger version of the iPod Touch but with more bells and whistles? Will this device ultimately mean anything?

John Patrick: I am quite enthusiastic about the iPad and can’t wait to get my hands on one. Some people are saying the iPad is just a big iPhone. Yes! I can’t wait and it is much more than an iPhone. It has applications galore. On day one it will run 140,000 iPhone applications plus significant upgrades to calendar, contacts, mapping, and email. I see the iPad lightening the load in briefcases when travelling. It will also take up a lot less space on the kitchen counter and while resting there in the new iPad case it will double as a picture viewer. (See complete review by John on his blog at http://www.patrickweb.com/weblog/archives/2010_01_31.php#Amazon and the iPad)

KX: In conjunction with that, do you see mobile devices becoming more important? Or do the limitations of 3G/4G speeds and device memory mean people will be relying more heavily on computers for the time being?

JP: Mobile is taking over. There are hundreds of millions of PC’s. There are billions of mobile phones. Today most of them are “dumb” but soon most of them will be “smart”. Most people in the world will access the Internet from their mobile device. The PC will become less and less relevant, accelerated by the iPad and the flood of tablet competitors who will follow.

KX: You mentioned in your blog the massive disparity between public WiFi in the US and overseas. Does the possibility of widely available WiFi (or WiGig, as you posited for the near future) make the question moot, and suggest that netbooks will be preferable to mobile devices?

JP: WiFi is growing all over the world. The netbook is just an inexpensive Windows PC. The only thing it has going for it is price. Do we really need another Windows PC? There is no innovation in netbooks.

KX: Switching gears, you also believe that social networking is going to be crucial to collaboration in the future. Are you talking about public social networks? Or about private intra-company or intra-industry networks?

JP: Both. All of the above. The days of just “plain” content are over. People expect to be able to compare notes on things. Inside or outside the firewall. The number one source that people use to pick a doctor or a hospital is not a website per se, it is asking their friends and family. Social networking is a tool to do that. In a corporate sense, the most valuable source of information on a topic may be somebody down the hall but again, social networks is a tool to reach them.

Collaboration is not new but the social networks provide enhanced tools to make collaboration work. It goes deeper than writing on someone’s wall. Specialized tools are emerging such as Kindling to make social networking concepts into serious business tools. The largest source of
content is user generated content. That is part of social networking too.

KX: Along those lines, we have statistics from Outsell that suggest that while 40% of engineers are on Facebook, only 4% are on Twitter. An interesting fact that may make more sense when you consider the recent stats suggesting that Twitter’s growth is stagnating. Why do you think Facebook’s adoption has been so much stronger among the engineering community?

JP: They are totally different types of social networking tools. Facebook is a people oriented way to establish a presence and connect with friends or colleagues. It is frictionless to achieve. Twitter is more of a protocol — a way to send a message or “tweet”. Twitter as a company may or may not survive but the concept of sending short messages and following companies or people is a fundamental and new “channel” on the Internet.

KX: Finally, I want to end on the question you asked to finish your post: “will we trust the internet?” You were talking in terms of security, but the question brings up an interesting point, do people inherently mistrust information that comes from the internet? Obviously Wikipedia is a flawed source, but does a company like Knovel have to fight the impression of being an internet company rather than an information provider?

JP: The Internet is the communications network. It will be a constant battle against those who want to disrupt it, but I am optimistic that the good guys will stay on top. I don’t think people inherently distrust the Internet — perhaps to the contrary. It is no different than a book. How do you know a book is accurate? The key is to test veracity through cross-checking just like doing any basic research. Knovel has a huge opportunity to leverage the Internet as the delivery mechanism to make engineers more productive. In the long run it will be important to use technology to provide digital signatures and authentication of data.

John’s post on Genesys XYI can be found at http://www.patrickweb.com/weblog/archives/2010_01_26.php#Genesys XVI.

Posted 2/3/2010

In a post about a month ago, I wrote that:

“The founding of YouTube in February, 2005 stands as one of the greatest moments in internet history. The implications of easily available streaming videos were boundless. Our favorite result of YouTube? Wacky science and engineering related music videos!”

While  I still wholeheartedly stand by my love of goofy music videos for entertainment, I can’t help but consider the benefit of using YouTube and streaming videos for education and training purposes.

Ensuring Knovel is accessible and easy to use is a high priority. As we continually add more features, content and functionality, it’s good to know that we can provide videos that enable our users to quickly adopt new offerings.

Before I get into Knovel’s new videos, I’d like to highlight videos produced by our users. Many information professionals have taken the time and effort to create instructional videos that raise awareness and encourage use of resources available in their libraries.

• One of the best videos that we’ve seen came courtesy of Jay Bhatt and Dana Denick of Drexel University’s Engineering Library. The video provides a quick and easy overview of Knovel’s search capabilities and interactive tools, while also providing specific information to help Drexel Engineering Students access the library. Terrific job Jay and Dana! If you have any Knovel tutorials that you’ve created, we’d love to see them! Drop your links into the comments section or send an e-mail to nschulman@knovel.com.

See this video on YouTube

With our recent spate of product updates, we at Knovel have created new tutorial videos to keep pace with the changes. I’m proud to debut our new videos, right here on K Exchange!

• First, we have a new video that demonstrates our Basic Search capabilities. The video details how the search function works and illustrates how to use Basic Search to determine the best materials to use to avoid the negative effects of weathering. Take a look!

See this video on YouTube

• Next, we have a new video that demonstrates the use of our Data Search function to develop improved liquids for cleaning the mixing vessels used in a production process.

See this video on YouTube

• Finally, we a have a new video that demonstrates our Interactive Tools. This video includes a chemistry problem in which the user needs to analyze the physical properties of ammonium compounds.

See this video on YouTube

What do you think of our new videos? Did you learn anything new about Knovel? Have you created any videos, or has anyone in your organization created a tutorial? We’d love to see them if you have!

The founding of YouTube in February, 2005 stands as one of the greatest moments in internet history. The implications of easily available streaming videos were boundless. Our favorite result of YouTube? Wacky science and engineering related music videos!

We’ve ranked our top 5 and presented them here for you, in one easy to swallow post. So grab some popcorn, sit back, relax and enjoy.

Disagree with our selections? We’ve managed to fix the kinks in our comment system, so let us know which videos we’re missing!

5) Perhaps it’s because I have a soft spot for ’80s benefit songs, or maybe it’s my love for the Simpson’s We’re Sending Our Love Down a Well video, but I’m really entertained by this Scientists for a Better PCR video. I’m still not certain what a BioRad Thermocycler is, but I kind of want one.

4) While more famous for their heralded Nano-Song, the gang from The Sounds of Science recently released their puppet laden follow up The Safety Song. My preference for this song is due to the monster solo starting at 2:40 of the video. “It’s not fair, I can’t help that I shed purple hair!”

3) There have been some Musical Tesla Coil videos hanging around the web for a few years, but the best by FAR is this one from The Geek Group of a pair of Tesla Coils playing the theme song from Super Mario Brothers.

2)  The YouTube page for the Protein Synthesis Dance claims that the video was taken from the end of a 70’s era video that had a 3 minute long lecture in front of it. One thing becomes immediately clear upon watching this: they were NOT kidding about it having come from the 1970’s.

1) This is a video I’ve talked about before and simply can not get enough of. The creative minds at Symphony of Science used an auto tune machine and some old film of Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye to create a music video called “We Are All Connected.” As a longtime fan of Richard Feynman, I loved seeing his inclusion in this video, and I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve watched it more than once:

Have another favorite? Let us know in the comments!

Last week, K Exchange sat down with Irene Ash, the President of Synapse Information Resources, a publisher of information on commercial trade name and generic chemicals/materials. Synapse Information Resources is currently preparing to release an updated version of one of their biggest titles, The Handbook of Industrial Surfactants.

K Exchange: Now, as I understand it, you’re getting ready to release an updated version of The Handbook of Industrial Surfactants

Irene: Right, that’s probably one of our flagship products.

KX: I’m going to cop to the fact that I had to look up what a surfactant is.

Irene: (Laughing) Well a lot of people do. It’s basically a contraction of “SURFace ACTive AgeNT. It’s any chemical that lowers the surface tension of a liquid, increasing the contact between the liquid and another substance.  There are many factors contributing to the overall behavior which  I sometimes have to look up myself, after all, my area is information, not chemistry.

KX: So, what exactly is it that Synapse Information Resources does?

Irene: We maintain a proprietary in-house chemical database that is continuously revitalized by gathering information on trade name chemicals, generic chemicals, and their worldwide chemical manufacturers. The collected material is then put through a rigorous filtering process that results in the uniform storage of product data.

KX: You were an editor before you were publisher, correct? How did you transition into owning your own publishing company?

Irene: Well, I started as an editor at Chemical Publishing Company; helping Harry Bennett compile some of his 28-Volume Chemical Formulary Series; it’s interesting because Noyes publishing, later purchased by William Andrew Publishing, was, at the time, the only other company doing formularies as well. From this, other opportunities started to present themselves in terms of compiling references on the chemicals (trade name and generic) used as ingredients in these formulations.

Now, my husband began as a computer software engineer for an aerospace company. He left his company because they transferred him to a military weapons environment; so then we said OK, lets further develop the references we’ve been working on into a independent specialty chemical company and develop the products as software as well as book references.

KX:  As the publishers of not only this chemical book, but of Industrial Chemical Thesaurus and the Specialty Chemicals Source Book, Synapse is heavily involved in the chemical industry. What kind of trends have you seen in the industry?

Irene: Well, a lot of chemical companies are having trouble right now, and there is definite retrenchment. A lot of companies are still buying our product, but they’re cutting back on how much they’re buying, maybe from 20 or 25 users down to 1 or 2.

I spoke with someone in a corporate library and was told that our products are fairly inexpensive, compared to others out there, and that since the company has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since March of this year, many high-priced subscriptions have been canceled. So while they kept us, they had to get rid of similar services, it’s tough for everyone right now. We are seeing a drop-off in sales from our biggest customers, they’re still ordering, but they’re ordering less.

Irene Ash is the president of Synapse Information Resources. Synapse has several of their biggest titles available on Knovel including The Handbook of Industrial Surfactants, The Specialty Chemicals Source Book and The Handbook of Green Chemicals. The updated version of The Handbook of Industrial Surfactants is set to be released in 2010.

I have a confession to make to all of K Exchange’s loyal readers. Before joining Knovel I was employed by a company that served the banking industry. As such, I’ve become fascinated by the differences between Engineers and Bankers. Aside from the obvious difference – Engineers work in Engineering, Bankers work in Banking – the subtle differences I’ve noticed are really what I find intriguing.

One of these perceived subtleties is on my mind right now, and I’d like to share that with you:

Trade Shows

Engineers may not be aware, but bankers LOVE trade shows. While economic conditions have certainly lowered attendance at these events, there are still an impressive number of banking and finance shows taking place.

Since joining Knovel, I’ve found that the same isn’t necessarily true for Engineers and Engineering  shows. While this is probably a more extreme example because of the specific industry, a friend who works in Aerospace Engineering (who actually isn’t Craig the Rocket Scientist, oddly enough) had this to say about a recent conference he attended:

“The level of collaboration at these things is always really low. There’s so much competition for the same contracts, so nobody really wants to share for fear of spilling trade secrets.”

I’m wondering if that ends up being the impetus behind what I perceive to be a lower number of trade shows in this industry. Is everyone simply so secretive that they don’t want to spill any secrets about their work? The last banking trade show I attended featured CEOs and Directors giving speeches about best practices and a panel containing 3 bank presidents ruminating on how to survive the recession. Occurrences like these don’t seem especially likely in the Engineering space.

But what do I know? I’m more interested in what our readers have to say. What trade shows do you attend? What value have you gotten from them? What would you like to see done differently?

As the Editor in Chief of K Exchange, I’m always on the lookout for anything and everything that Knovel owns even semi-media related. So when I came across this video, I was equal parts curious, delighted, and skeptical. Those of us without Engineering degrees tend not to believe something like this is even physically possible. And while my brother, the high school physics teacher, would certainly scoff at my ignorance (not to pigeonhole all physics professionals, my brother is an especially adroit scoffer) I’m still blown away by this:

The First Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened and collapsed in 1940 in Tacoma, Washington. At the time of its construction it was the third largest suspension bridge in the world behind the Golden Gate Bridge, and the George Washington Bridge. And as a lifelong NJ resident, I’ve driven over the George Washington Bridge many times, and can tell you for certain that it has never done THAT.

For those of us without Physics or Engineering Degrees, I needed to dig into some research to find what actually causes something like that to happen. Along with the video, we had an information page that read, roughly:

“The bridge collapsed due to an unstable oscillation induced by aeroelastic flutter.  Aeroelastic flutter couples several degrees of freedom of a structure so that wind inserts more energy into the vibrating structure than the flexing of the structure can dissipate.  The result is that the amplitude of successive oscillations increases, rather than decreasing, as in normal damped vibration eventually overcoming the strength of the structure.”

I’ve read that paragraph three times. Color me confused.

Reading on though, it starts to make a little bit more sense to us laymen:

“There was an undamped twisting vibration, which kept the center of the bridge motionless while its two halves twisted in opposite directions.  With the combined system of bridge and wind behaving as an undamped oscillator, the amplitude of the second torsional mode overcame the strength of the suspender cables.  The failure of the first few loaded the remaining cables beyond their capacity.  More and more cables failed, until the bridge deck fell into Puget Sound.”

Got it. So, basically the wind made the bridge twist until the suspender cables couldn’t handle it anymore, they snapped, and the bridge fell into the water. Which seemed to me like a one time thing, right? How could this have been a mistake that had been made before? Well, it had. And, according to page 15.86 of McGraw -- Hill’s Structural Steel Designer’s Handbook (1999), it’s not especially rare:

“During the slightly more than 12 decades prior to the Tacoma Narrows failure, 10 other bridges were severely damaged or destroyed by wind action.”

The book also includes the following table, listing other wind related suspension bridge disasters. Notice the especially long break between the last two disasters…

Reprinted from McGraw -- Hill’s Structural Steel Designer’s Handbook (1999)

It had been over 50 years since the last collapse… so how did it happen again? When 50 years before someone went “Wait, we probably shouldn’t build bridges in a way that will make them wave around and collapse whenever a brisk wind comes by.”

The most feasible answer I found comes from McGraw -- Hills Forensic Structural Engineering Handbook (2000) which states:

“The engineer for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge superstructure, described as “among the highest authorities in suspension bridge design, was not thought by many at the time to be negligent…

Diane Vaughan wrote about the Challenger explosion. She describes the actions of the engineers and managers of the space shuttle program as succumbing to the “normalization of deviance,” the gradual acceptance of sequential minor errors and failures, accumulating  and culminating in a major catastrophe. The Tacoma Narrows failure may have been an example of this phenomenon.”

In other words, little things started being ignored early on in the project, and it eventually snowballed into a giant, wavy bridge that collapsed into the Puget Sound 4 months after opening.

The good news about all of this? According to Wikipedia:

“Amazingly, the only life lost was that of a dog who could not be induced to exit the car in which he had been a passenger.  Car and dog went into Puget Sound, along with the bridge deck. Neither was ever found.”

Poor doggy.

This is a special message for Engineering Students only, sorry professionals.

How would you like to win a Kindle? What about a Wii? An iPod Nano? Maybe some Gift Cards?

By nature, engineers are problem solvers and make technical decisions every day. Knovel’s University Challenge allows you to get hands on experience finding and using tools and information essential to your studies, work, and future projects. All while competing to win great prizes.

Enter at http://info.knovel.com/challenge today!

Knovel board member John Patrick was interviewed as part of the 2009 SLA conference back in June. A sincere thank you to SLA for this video:

From the title, many people will already be able to tell where I’m going with this, but I’d like you to indulge me anyway.

Last week I was laid up for a few days after having my wisdom teeth removed. While lying (unexpectedly) awake as the teeth were pulled, I couldn’t help but think of exactly how amazing a product Novocain really is.  How could people possibly have been able to bear having their teeth pulled before this was invented?

I pictured someone from 1950’s middle America getting a tooth pulled. William H Macy’s character from Pleasantville had to tie a string from his tooth to a doorknob and slam the door after drinking some whiskey to dull the pain. As weird as that may be, by the time the third wisdom tooth comes out that seems like a perfectly logical representation of post WWII oral surgery.

Einhorn

Novocain though was actually first synthesized around the turn of the 19th century by Alfred Einhorn, a German Chemist. Prior to the invention of Novocaine, the standard for use in dental work was cocaine, which has obvious drawbacks as a medical device.

So I’d like to propose a toast to Dr. Einhorn. A man whose 100 year old invention has helped countless individuals over time, most importantly me. Thank you Dr. Einhorn. Thank you for, according to the Chemical Process and Design Handbook:

Who knew it was that easy?