Using hovercraft in civil engineering...

	Using hovercraft in civil engineering
	Civil engineers in Australia have successfully used a specially adapted hovercraft to investigate extremely soft ground. The two-man craft was fitted with a full range of equipment to carry out tests on the vast gold-mining waste sites in the west of the country. Tim Newson of Dundee University and Martin Fahey of UWA Geomechanics report that the surface shear strength of the tailings dumps can be as low as 10kPa, making any other form of surface transport impossible.
	(Geotechnical Engineering, Vol. 149 No. 2)

	Can engineers make government transport policies work?
	Transport engineers and planners are on the front line of the British government's battle to deter people from using their cars but are finding the going tough. They are facing increased resistance from the public as they try to implement unpopular and sometimes conflicting policies. Barry Simpson of Aston University says in his introduction to this dedicated issue that the truism ‘effective transport policies are publicly unacceptable and acceptable policies are ineffective’ means transport engineers and planners are forced to use the ‘stick’ of disincentives rather than the ‘carrot’ of incentives to make effective changes.
	(Municipal Engineer, Vol. 145 No. 1)

	Standardising subsidence solutions
	An innovative computer system that helps civil engineers to diagnose and cure building subsidence problems in a more consistent fashion has been developed by two former researchers at Teeside University. Chimay Anumba and Darren Scott, currently with Loughborough University and Ferguson McIlveen respectively, believe subsidence repairs are often either too little, due to basic lack of understanding, or too much, due to fear of liability claims. Their SCAMS (‘subsidence case management system’) knowledge-based system is intended to provide a fair and effective approach to the management of subsidence cases by providing a sound, technical framework for decision making.
	(Structures and Buildings, Vol. 146, No. 2)

	London's CrossRail project: planning and design
	The UK's Strategic Railway Authority has recommended that London's proposed £3 billion CrossRail project should now go ahead after being put on hold for five years. The 165 km railway, which will run from Reading and Aylesbury in the west to Shenfield in the east via a new 9km tunnel in central London, is modelled on the RER system in Paris and S-Bahns in Frankfurt and Munich. Introduced by project director Donald Heath, the seven papers in this dedicated issue cover the background and planning of the project, the design of new surface and underground works, geotechnical aspects, tunnel ventilation and noise and vibration control.
	(Transport, Vol. 147, No. 2).

	Assessing sea defences with radar
	Many of the world's concrete sea defences were built nearly 100 years ago and are increasingly at risk of failure from hidden scour cavities. A cost-effective radar technique for detecting such cavities has been successfully trialled on a 260 m long sea wall at Rhyl in North Wales. Douglas Nichol and John Reynolds of Wrexham Council explain how ground-penetrating radar equipment was pulled along survey lines 1 m apart on the surface of the 1913-built structure. Unlike coring, it provided continuous longitudinal cross-sections of the sea wall up to a depth of 1.5 m.
	(Water and Maritime Engineering, Vol. 148, No. 1)

	Using hovercraft in civil engineering
	Civil engineers in Australia have successfully used a specially adapted hovercraft to investigate extremely soft ground. The two-man craft was fitted with a full range of equipment to carry out tests on the vast gold-mining waste sites in the west of the country. Tim Newson of Dundee University and Martin Fahey of UWA Geomechanics report that the surface shear strength of the tailings dumps can be as low as 10kPa, making any other form of surface transport impossible.
	(Geotechnical Engineering, Vol. 149 No. 2)

	Can engineers make government transport policies work?
	Transport engineers and planners are on the front line of the British government's battle to deter people from using their cars but are finding the going tough. They are facing increased resistance from the public as they try to implement unpopular and sometimes conflicting policies. Barry Simpson of Aston University says in his introduction to this dedicated issue that the truism ‘effective transport policies are publicly unacceptable and acceptable policies are ineffective’ means transport engineers and planners are forced to use the ‘stick’ of disincentives rather than the ‘carrot’ of incentives to make effective changes.
	(Municipal Engineer, Vol. 145 No. 1)

	Standardising subsidence solutions
	An innovative computer system that helps civil engineers to diagnose and cure building subsidence problems in a more consistent fashion has been developed by two former researchers at Teeside University. Chimay Anumba and Darren Scott, currently with Loughborough University and Ferguson McIlveen respectively, believe subsidence repairs are often either too little, due to basic lack of understanding, or too much, due to fear of liability claims. Their SCAMS (‘subsidence case management system’) knowledge-based system is intended to provide a fair and effective approach to the management of subsidence cases by providing a sound, technical framework for decision making.
	(Structures and Buildings, Vol. 146, No. 2)

	London's CrossRail project: planning and design
	The UK's Strategic Railway Authority has recommended that London's proposed £3 billion CrossRail project should now go ahead after being put on hold for five years. The 165 km railway, which will run from Reading and Aylesbury in the west to Shenfield in the east via a new 9km tunnel in central London, is modelled on the RER system in Paris and S-Bahns in Frankfurt and Munich. Introduced by project director Donald Heath, the seven papers in this dedicated issue cover the background and planning of the project, the design of new surface and underground works, geotechnical aspects, tunnel ventilation and noise and vibration control.
	(Transport, Vol. 147, No. 2).

	Assessing sea defences with radar
	Many of the world's concrete sea defences were built nearly 100 years ago and are increasingly at risk of failure from hidden scour cavities. A cost-effective radar technique for detecting such cavities has been successfully trialled on a 260 m long sea wall at Rhyl in North Wales. Douglas Nichol and John Reynolds of Wrexham Council explain how ground-penetrating radar equipment was pulled along survey lines 1 m apart on the surface of the 1913-built structure. Unlike coring, it provided continuous longitudinal cross-sections of the sea wall up to a depth of 1.5 m.
	(Water and Maritime Engineering, Vol. 148, No. 1)

Summaries of all papers published in ICE Proceedings journals since 1998 can be read free of charge at the ICE web site (www.ice.org.uk/jol). To subscribe to one or more journals call +44 (0)20 7665 2135 (members) or +44 (0)20 7665 2460 (non-members).

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