Civil Engineering Photos

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Seen here is the renovation of the University of California – Berkeley football stadium. Due to the spread out nature of a stadium type construction site, four tower cranes are needed to gain access to the project in its entirety. When dealing with tower cranes in this density great care must be taken to ensure that the booms of each crane do not interfere with each other. This is done with a combination of offsetting the height of each tower cranes as well as constant communication between the operators and the personal on the ground via radios.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

The piece of equipment pictured above is a loader and is standard among most job sites in the United States and around the world. It is typically used to move earth, sand, or gravel around a construction site. The current configuration of this machine, however, has forks to load thinks such as pallets or pieces of equipment onto and off of the back of trucks or around the construction site. Forks like these are adjustable and can be widened or narrowed to fit different objects. When the operator is finished using the forks he can simply switch the forks out for a bucket and begin to move scoopable materials again. The ability to switch tools of the loader makes it one of the most versatile machines used in construction today.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

This is a powerful tool known as a concrete chainsaw. Working on the same principle as a wood chainsaw it is very capable of cutting through concrete, asphalt, and rock materials. This particular unit is powered by hydraulic fluid being pumped through the hoses coming out of the handle on the right side of the unit. Saw chains for this unit are many times laced with diamond grit cutting heads and are very effective at cutting through tough materials. Concrete chainsaws are particularly good at making square cuts, because unlike circular concrete saws they don’t have to cut past the edge of the hole to complete the cut.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

This is a coffer dam used in the construction of a bridge pier. Cofferdams like this one are used to create a dry area so construction can take place on infrastructure that is in the water. A careful eye will be able to see epoxy coated rebar in the bottom of this cofferdam, as well as the water being pumped out near the top right of the picture. Many times cofferdams are not watertight and require nearly continuous pumping.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Above is a concrete placing crew working on a large mat foundation. The workers must coordinate their efforts in order to complete the job before the concrete cures. The workers near the bottom of the page are consolidating the concrete with vibrators. While another worker, not pictured above, gives the initial leveling with a tool called a screed. The final touch for this rough finish job is a broom finish done by the worker in the orange hard hat.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Seen above is the resteel for a reinforced concrete beam in a parking structure laid out before the concrete is poured. The epoxy coated rebars on top (green color) help in beam design by adding ductility to the section. The post-tension tendons (blue color) take the tension force on the bottom of the beam and greatly increase the strength of the beam section. Stirrups are the vertically oriented rebar (green color) pieces hanging from the horizontal rebars. Stirrups are placed at varying intervals to resist the shear force which changes along the length of the beam.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Seen above is a construction worker putting the finishing touches on the Exterior Insulating Finish System (EIFS) of a building. EIFS are composed of insulation panels that are connected to the building via mechanical fasteners or adhesive. These panels are then covered with synthetic coatings to provide both a visually appealing and weather proof finish. Many times EIFS is confused with stucco, however, technically they are different materials.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

What is this random wall doing in a parking lot of job trailers? It is a mock up of the future building skin that will be built in this area. This allows the architect to see what the building will look like in the area before the entire building is completed. It also allows the finish contractor to gain valuable experience in what is to be expected from the architect in terms of finish detail quality.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Seen here is a D6R Caterpillar track-type tractor, or in construction terms, a dozer. Dozers are used for pushing soil material around construction sites, light soil compaction jobs, and many other tasks in the construction, mining, and logging industries. Dozers are known for their ability to be used in almost any terrain thanks to the crawler tracks they use for movement. As can be seen here, the dozer is working in a wet clay filled soil material that is very prone to bogging down traditional wheel vehicles and is doing just fine.