Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities

In July 1990, a series of five blasts took place about 200 m from two liquified natural gas (LNG) tanks belonging to Gaz Metropolitain in Montreal, Canada. One of the tanks lost its thermal insulation capacity at the base after the second blast. Massive cracking was discovered in the insulation material (foam glass), which had to be replaced. The replacement of the foam glass required a shutdown of the reservoir for about a year. This paper describes the analytical studies (static and dynamic) and experimental investigation that were performed to determine if the massive cracking was the result of the blast loading. The study of the available evidence and the numerical and experimental results show that the change in mechanical properties of the foam glass at low temperature, coupled with a low liquid level in the tank, shift the fundamental natural period of the base of the tank toward the predominant period of the blast‐induced ground motion. The combination of these two effects induced the massive cracking of the foam glass.

Adobe is an uncemented to weakly cemented material, which makes it susceptible to erosion or disintegration from rainfall, periodic flooding, or the presence of a shallow ground‐water table. This paper deals with the Guajome Ranch house, in Vista, Calif., a National Historic Landmark, which was primarily built during the period 1852–54. It was constructed of adobe walls (0.6–1.2 m (2–4 ft) thick. Both the interior and exterior of the Guajome Ranch house have considerably deteriorated due to a lack of maintenance. Drainage of the main courtyard is accomplished by simply letting water flow in ditches beneath the interior floor‐boards. This has resulted in severe deterioration where the water has come in contact with the adobe foundation. The results of laboratory tests on original adobe material demonstrated the rapid deterioration of the adobe when it is subjected to wetting‐drying cycles. A new surface drainage system is proposed for the Guajome Ranch house in order to prevent surface water from coming in contact with the adobe foundation.

Highway construction contract claims are becoming both more numerous and more costly. This paper analyzes the nature of such claims. Specific insights are offered into both the classification and frequency of claims with respect to damage type, highway project element, and fundamental cause. Preventive tactics that correspond to fundamental causes are also suggested. The research involved analysis of 71 actual contractor claims for additional compensation processed by a large public transportation agency between 1982 and 1987. The data suggest that compensable delays, differing site conditions, and defective contract documents can frequently and severely lead to contractor damages. The following fundamental causes are particularly problematic: contractor's lack of planning and scheduling, owner's reliance on exculpatory clauses, erroneous plans, and the general nature of rehabilitation projects.

Although the ideal would be to teach a special course in failure studies of constructed facilities in which appropriate lecture materials are available, an alternative is to add failure case studies to existing civil engineering courses. A method by which this can be accomplished without requiring additional expenditures of time and money, and special forensic expertise by the teacher, is to require a term paper on a review of a specific case study from a civil engineering journal. A detailed description is given on the requirements and administration of the term‐paper assignment during the duration of the course.

The maintenance manager is frequently presented with the task of maintaining many properties over an extended period, with limited resources. To use these limited resources wisely, the manager must be able to not only control costs for maintenance but also minimize the management effort required to address that maintenance. This paper proposes that by determining the nature of those maintenance costs, the managerial effort required for cost control can be limited. Five major associations were studied to identify the sources of their maintenance costs and establish the relationship between the nature of maintenance costs incurred, work types, and frequency of jobs. The result of this study is a method of classifying trades according to three criteria that allow the identification of trends in maintenance work and the allocation of managerial effort according to the characteristics of the work. A method for identifying significant sources of maintenance costs and determining the appropriate managerial system for each type of job is proposed.