Civil Engineering Photos

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

The blue folded arm on top of the tower is a placement boom off a concrete pump truck. This setup is used to allow better access to the bottom of the excavation for crews pouring concrete in the foundation. By moving the base of the placement boom to a tower, much more range is added to the boom. If you look closely the truck the boom belongs to is next to the excavation on the right side of the photograph. As usual with a concrete pump truck, concrete mixers deposit their concrete into the pump truck which pumps the concrete through a pipe into the boom. The boom then places the concrete anywhere in the bottom of the excavation it can reach.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Many times when using reinforced concrete in civil engineering applications thousands of cubic yards of it are needed. However, concrete usually isn’t made on site for a project, but at a local batch plant. This means it must all be trucked to the site using concrete mix trucks in approximately eight cubic yard batches. Seen here is a line of concrete mixer trucks from a local batch plant waiting to deliver their loads to a job. This pour was over 6 000 cubic yards of concrete and took place in one continuous operation lasting nearly 40 hours.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Seen here is an elevator storage building. It was once used to store building materials, such as gravel, to ensure proper moisture content for making concrete was maintained in any weather conditions. On the right side of the building the conveyor belt used to lift the material into the silos can be seen quite clearly. Conveyer handling of materials is quite efficient and is still used today to load gravel, and other granular material like corn, into silos for storage.

Photo Credit: Karl Jansen

This is a photo of some strip foundations being placed. Strip foundations are a type of shallow foundation, used when the soil the foundations are placed on is able to support the the loads that are placed on it. Strip foundations are used to support either a line load, such as that from a load-bearing wall, or a series of columns positioned in a line.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

This may look like a simple pile of gravel, but in reality it is a key ingredient in one of the most widely used building materials in the world; concrete. Concrete is a mixture of cement, water, and aggregate. Aggregate is a mixture of both sand and gravel, or fine and course aggregate respectively. Aggregate composition is very controlled in terms of the size and quantity of sand and gravel particles to be used. This gradation of aggregate particles ensures that a proper force transfer between particles and cement occurs to maintain strength of the overall concrete element in a structure.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Featured in this photo is a temporary cofferdam made of sheet piles. This dam is used to keep the water from the Rouge River, the water on the far side of the dam, from flowing into the canal on the near side. Although it is difficult to tell, the water levels are actually quite different on each side of the cofferdam. By holding back the water from the Rouge River, construction crews can perform work on the banks of the canal in a dry environment instead of working beneath the surface of the water.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Featured above is an excavator fitted with a claw for demolition. A machine with this type of configuration is very versatile for demolition purposes. The claw can be manipulated quite accurately for pulling pieces of a structure down or for sorting material on the ground into piles for easier disposal and recycling.

Photo Credit: Karl Jansen

This photo shows a silt fence in the process of being installed around the perimeter of a construction site. The purpose of a silt fence is to contain the fine silty material that is often agitated during construction activities and keep it from washing away. By keeping the silty material on site it effectively protects adjacent storm sewers and surface waters from contamination. A silt fence is composed of a synthetic fabric and secured in place by wooden stakes. This is a common method of erosion control used on a variety of projects.

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

This is a regular steel member utilizing rivet construction on a bridge built in 1886. The cool trait about this member, however, is the maker’s mark on the middle. If you look closely you can see the name CARNEGIE raised. Carnegie was the owner of a steel company called Carnegie Steel Company that eventually was sold to help form the conglomerate U.S. Steel.