 Welcome to this week's edition of this week and civil engineering also known as twice a weekly new show focused on providing civil engineering professionals with the most important and relevant industry updates. I am a host for this episode, Luis Duque. I'm a practicing bridge engineer working in Boulder, Colorado. And I'm also the founder of the engineer future podcast where I share my experiences with all their young engineers and students to help them succeed in their careers. You can find all the episodes of this week in civil engineering at twice.news. That's twice TWICE.News. Reference to all the news stories covered will be in the episode show notes. And if you're watching YouTube, make sure to subscribe to civil engineering news playlist to receive weekly updates. Now it's time for what's happening this week in civil engineering. Now it's time for this week's news. You're about to hear excerpts from the stories referenced. Links to all the four articles can be found at twice.news. First, let's cover some of the biggest breaking news stories from this past week that may affect civil engineering companies and professionals. Firstly, Robb to detect and assess pathos being developed by University of Liverpool, UK from Tom Stone, traffictechnologytoday.com. The University of Liverpool has today announced that it has formed a new spin out company, Robotized Limited, to take forward new technology that has the potential to radically transform road maintenance. Currently, no autonomous technology solutions exist to tackle the pothold crisis which plague many parts of the country and it is estimated to have cost more than one billion pounds to repair over the last decade. The company will commercialize patented research university engineering robotics lab. The technology uses artificial intelligence and robotics to significantly improve the way road defects, including pathos and road cracks, are detected and repaired. Dr Paolo Palletti, who will serve as the Chief Technology Officer for the company, said Robotized Limited will develop an artificial intelligence AI driven robotic system to address the national and international pathos problems. The proposed system will be able to autonomously detect and characterize road defects such as cracks and pathos, assess and predict the severity of such defects and fix cracks so that they do not evolve into pathos. Dr Sebastiano Ficera, Technical Director of the company, added, the new technology we are developing will take road maintenance tasks faster, cheaper and cleaner and ultimately make roads safer and more accessible. Interested to see how much of this impact this robot can make? Next up, let's look at an interesting story from the UK. How sustainability is shaping bridge construction? From Construction Europe magazine found on KHL.com, true sustainability revolved around three pillars, each of which contribute towards creating a process that is workable on all fronts. These include social, environmental and economic measures. Greener moves along will not achieve true sustainability. The build must consider the environment, but it must also balance or improve the economy it is built within and balance or improve the social situation of the area it is built in. Bridge construction will inevitably consume resources through raw material and manpower, but it must be balanced in order to develop sustainable construction processes. Simply put, balanced equals supply minus demand. So long as the balance remains neutral or positive, sustainability has been achieved. In truth, the bridge fabrication sector has already adopted as many sustainable processes as it can in terms of its supply chain, raw materials and social impacts. Experts suggest that the best way for bridge fabricators and construction to further resolve insustainability is through extending the lifespan of bridges. As Man Chung Tang, a bridge engineer says, a bridge that lasts 300 years instead of 100 years is equivalent to a reduction in environmental impacts by 66%. Bridge maintenance is definitely in the foreground for the future of sustainable bridge construction. No longer will a 50 year lifespan to be considered adequate for a bridge duration of service. With the improved rehabilitation and repairs, bridges will be expected to keep on providing a safe and valuable service socially, environmentally and economically for many more years. This is an interesting article in that we often hear about sustainability in the build environment, but this article actually associates more measure roles with sustainability through measure progress. Next up, let's look at an interesting story about IBM's maximum for civil infrastructure. IBM introduces new technology to help aging infrastructure from Tyler Omath, itpro.co.uk. IBM has announced that its maximum for civil infrastructure offering has new capabilities that can help with aging infrastructure issues. The new capabilities will include the ability to deploy on Red Hat OpenShift for quick deployment, management and scaling of hybrid cloud as well as new artificial intelligence and 3D modeling annotation tools. These innovations will help engineers gain deep industry and task specific insights that could prolong the lives of aging highways, railways, tunnels and bridges. Aging infrastructure is a growing problem worldwide. Over the past 10 years, there have been 78 recorded bridge collapse worldwide, including 12 in the US alone. In 2015, approximately $2 trillion in infrastructure repairs were left unfunded. According to 2017, American side of civil engineers infrastructure report card. IBM's maximum for civil infrastructure can process data from sensors, wearables, stationary cameras and drones. It can also pull data from the weather company. This helps operators determine the severity of damage from cracks, rust, corrosion and other factors can reduce the need for manual inspections, helping lower cost and productized infrastructure repairs. It is exciting to see many powerful applications being developed to help civil engineering professionals help to improve our infrastructure. Next up, US news in civil engineering. First to Connecticut. Charter Oak Bridge project completed a year ahead of schedule, Connecticut Department of Transportation from Dan Corcoran, NBCConnecticut.com. The four-year in-state 91 Charter Oak Bridge project, which aims to ease traffic problems and improve safety in the Hartford East, Hartford and Weathersfield areas, has not yet been completed. However, a particular portion of the project is being finished a year ahead of schedule. However, a particular portion of the project is being finished a year ahead of schedule, according to engineers with the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Some drivers will notice a difference as soon as newly completed highway ramp in Hartford reopens this week's official set. The overall construction project, with an estimated cost of $213 million, aimed to add a lane to Interstate 91 in Hartford, expand Exit 29, a well-known bottleneck, to two lanes and to move that exit from the right side of the highway to the left. The finishing touches have recently been put on the Exit 87 ramp that connects routes 5 and 15 south to I-91 south of Hartford. The work at that location was supposed to keep the ramp close to traffic on the next fall. It's nice to see civil projects ahead of schedule and drivers seeing real improvements because of them. Next up, keeping Key Arena's landmark lead overhead a climate pledge arena with development is a 22,000-ton balancing act, Nadeem M. Post, ENR.com. Most contractors will jump at the chance to have a roof overhead during a major rebuild. But for the team turning earthquake prone, Seattle's 411,000 square feet key arena into the 932,000 square feet climate pledge arena, this city-owned Facilities Historic Helmet has been a 44 million pound design and construction headache. More complicated is an understatement. The excavation for the mostly subgrade redevelopment which has a larger footprint that Key Arena required undermining the foundation of the 400 square feet roof. The lead had to be kept safely in place due to a seating pose imperative to preserve the old arena's landmark looks. Extensive shoring was needed to keep the roof intact. The temporary support system, which also had to receive seismic loads and limit movement to one quarter of an inch, ended up costing $35 million and weighing 4,400 tons. Costs for the mind-boggling redevelopment now at 1 billion have increased by 250 million from OVG's early budget, and the developer extended the plan opening by a year to next fall. The toughest part is done. There were no collisions or mishaps. The roof is bearing on its permanent support and the shoring is all but removed. The job 55% complete is on schedule. The contractor has been using 4D, which combines a 3D model with a project scheduled to simulate construction for more than 15 years. It began by experimenting with it on parts of inscrutable Walt Disney concert hall built in the early 2000s. It's not coincidence that Mortensen assembled its Disney leadership team to figure out the equally mystifying that drastic difference are in a project. It's amazing to hear about some of the challenges that civil, structural and geotechnical engineers have to face to overcome on their projects. Now let's take a quick break from this week's news for some civil engineering career inspiration. Last time I shared with you some strategies to be a better young engineer in terms of helping others and being more proactive in your career. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. In this week's episode I want to share with you something that has helped me elevate my understanding of technical concepts and all the knowledge I've gained and it's always to seek to learn every single day something. Read a book, read an article, find more ways to learn these concepts and not only learn them but also study them after you're done learning them. And this has helped me tremendously in my career and at the same time when I'm learning I want to share more with other students or engineers and just overall develop my communication skills that way. So always seek to learn more and at the same time when you're learning try to share the knowledge with someone else to practice your communication skills. I hope you find that inspirational. Now let's get back to the news. Next let's move on to some international news in civil engineering from this past week. First up we're headed to India. SISTEC forms floating concrete blocks. Staff reporter delirepioneer.com. Sagar Groups, Sagar Institute of Science and Technology, SISTEC. Gandhi Nagar civil engineering department has successfully prepared floating concrete informal flight weight blocks using the state-of-the-art SISTEC labs. Students use materials of quartz sand, calcium edgypsum, cement, fly ash, aluminum powder and water to create the block having durable strength. The cost of creating four blocks is approximately 1000 rupees. The lightweight block can be used for reduction in dead loads, making saving foundations and reinforcement and has improved thermal properties and improved fire resistance and is saving transportation costs. This is both an exciting and innovative story. Next up let's head to New Zealand. $13.5 million tunnel boring machine for $4.4 billion city rail link arrives in Auckland. Anne Gibson, NZHerald.co.nz. New Zealand's biggest transport infrastructure job live forward today with the arrival of the $13.5 million tunnel boring machine for the $4.4 billion city rail link. The machine officially named Dame Wynne Cooper is now at the ports of Auckland after a voyage of more than 9,000 kilometers from its factory in southern China. A lot of our work on Tuna has focused on getting ready for the heavy work ahead. The building blocks are in place and the arrival of Dame Wynne Cooper marks a symbolic crossover from those enabling work to the complex and hefty job of finishing our tunnels and stations. Construction is ramping up quickly. Sweeney said, the large equipment to excavate the rail tunnels has arrived in sections aboard the BBC Orion to be tracked to the city rail link siding Mount Eden for reassembly. The project will hold a public open day in December so people can get a close-up look of the machine that will transform the way we travel around the city. On that note, let's cover a few infrastructure related stories starting with some general news about infrastructure projects. U.S. Department of Transportation awards 291 million dollars for passenger rail infrastructure projects. Tom Ichnowski, enr.com. The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded 291 million dollars in federal grants to help finance 11 major projects that aim to upgrade passenger rail infrastructure around the country. The larger of two Connecticut grants is 79.7 million dollars to help fund a new bridge over the Norwalk River. Plans call for replacing the state-owned Moveable Walk Bridge built in 1896 with two new vertical lift bridges each with two tracks. Earlier, the project had received 29.9 million dollars from Federal Railroad Administration under the same program, as well as a Federal Transit Administration and Hurricane Sandy Relief Funds. The other grant for a Connecticut project is 65.2 million dollars to replace a 113-year-old bridge across the Connecticut River, the bridge which Amrak owns links Old Lime and Old Saybrook. The new bridge will feature a basketball moveable span that will provide a greater vertical clearance for ship traffic on the river that the current structure does. California's older grant is 9.8 million dollars for the North County Transit District to replace an upgrade, signal and train control and great crossing equipment on a 60-mile rail section in the San Diego area. Also on the list of winners is the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which will receive 29.3 million dollars to build a more accessible platform, plus track and signal rehabilitation at Worchester Union Station. It's nice to see money being spread around more important infrastructure needs. Next up, U.S. Department of Agriculture sending 9.1 million dollars to Florida to improve rural drinking water-help wastewater infrastructure. From Kevin Derby, FloridaDaily.com This week, the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA announced that it will reinvest more than 9.1 million dollars to help improve rural drinking water and help wastewater infrastructure in Sunshine State. The funds are part of 891 million dollars that the Trump Administration announced this week for water improvements across the country. U.S. Virgin Islands State Director Phil Leary said Trump's administration long ago made rural America a priority, and this funding allows for improvements to our communities and economies here in rural Florida and throughout America. Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Perdue, USDA continues to be a strong partner with the rural communities because we know that when rural America thrives, all of America thrives. The funds come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Water and Wastewater Disposal Loan and grant program. Vocala East Village Inc. will utilize funds to connect its wastewater system to the Marion County wastewater system. The project consists of a pump station, 1600 linear feet of force main to connect to the county wastewater system and other associated work. The wastewater system provides service to 486 customers, the USDA noted. To wrap up, here's an inspirational quote to motivate you for the rest of your day. You don't need to be excellent at everything you do, but be authentic, understanding, and be a good listener to those around you. And this is from Moussel Hussein, PE from a previous Civil Engineering Podcast episode. There you have it. That's what's happening this week in Civil Engineering. You can find references to all these stories mentioned at TWICE.News and all episodes are also published in video form at EMI's YouTube channel at youtube.com slash engineering careers. Remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever you listen to podcasts, and of course on YouTube for the video version. This is Luis Duque signing off. In the meantime, go and be the best civil engineering professional you can be.