Welcome to the August 2018 issue of Civil Engineering.
As I write this editorial, I am back in my hometown of Toruń, Poland, which managed to preserve its medieval spatial layout and architecture remarkably well. As I walked down the narrow streets surrounded by brick buildings, I came to the realisation that it is also down to us, as engineers, to preserve our cultural heritage – especially in times of numerous ongoing major developments.
It is our responsibility to celebrate, learn from and improve upon successes of our predecessors. Papers in this issue touch on some of these aspects.
Considering China’s rapid economic growth and accelerated urbanisation, I am particularly pleased to present the first paper. Zhou et al. (2018) describe the genealogy of woven timber arch bridges. The authors help us to understand this almost 1000-year-old concept and describe methods used in construction.
They conclude by giving an overview of what is being done today to preserve these truly unique timber structures. You may also be interested in a previously published paper by Zhong et al. (2017) on a related topic – the world’s oldest wooden pagoda.
Two authors from Norway contribute our second paper, which is about the initial stages of what will likely become our generation’s legacy – high-speed rail. In parallel with the UK’s development of the 530 km HS2 project, Norway is planning to deliver 270 km of new high-speed rail by 2034. Tveit and Gjerde (2018) describe the approach taken to deliver the master plan for the Sorli-to-Brumunddal section.
More specifically, they explain how building information modelling allowed smooth flow of information and brought together teams from across different regions to allow collaborative delivery to a demanding timescale while meeting numerous project challenges.
We then move on to a paper on renewable energy – but unusually it is about improvements to concepts that have been around for centuries. Carruthers et al. (2018) explain how a newly developed waterwheel design differs from traditional ones.
The authors describe the unique design’s numerous advantages in the context of water volume, speed and depth, based on a prototype they built and tested at Abertay University in Scotland.
The final paper takes us back to the topic of challenges of protection and preservation of existing structures. Iran remains one of the most seismically active countries in the world. You may remember news about the tragic earthquake in 2017 near the Iran–Iraq border that damaged more than 500 villages in the region.
Mahmoudi Moazam et al. (2018) look at computer modelling methods to understand behaviour of plain concrete arch bridges under seismic loading to keep Iran’s century-old railway infrastructure safe and operational.
I hope that the wide spectrum of topics covered in this issue will mean you will find something of interest, irrespective of your engineering specialism. Let us not forget that what we build today forms part of our heritage for the generations of tomorrow.
Remember too that you can access our most recent articles Ahead of Print through the ICE Virtual Library at www.icevirtuallibrary.com/toc/jcien/0/0.
