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The "Famous Engineers" Series
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The Master of Prestressed Concrete |
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The man known as "Mr. Prestressed Concrete" was
born in Fuzhou, China in 1912. As a boy, his first
career choice was to become a politician, but his father
encouraged him to pursue a career in engineering. |
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Educated at home in his youth, the boy did not
begin formal schooling until he was 11 years old.
Nonetheless, he passed the college entrance exams at the age
of 14 with the top math score at Jiaotong University's
Engineering School and went on to earn a B.S in Civil
Engineering. |
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This son of a Chinese Supreme Court Justice
then moved to the U.S. and earned a Master's Degree in Civil
Engineering at UC Berkeley. His master's thesis on direct
moment distribution was the first student thesis ever
published by ASCE. |
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In 1933, the newly graduated engineer moved
back to China, where he worked for the Yunnan-Chongqing
Railroad. At the age of 25 he became the railroad's
chief engineer and he oversaw the survey, design and
construction of more than 1,000 bridges in China's mountainous
regions. |
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After World War II, he accepted a teaching
position at UC Berkley and immigrated to the U.S. with his
wife. It was there that he began his pioneering research
on prestressed concrete that changed the history of building -
making possible today's high rises and long-span structures.
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His list of projects include ground-breaking
structures throughout the world. He designed the
Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco - a massive
earth-covered structure having the largest underground room in
the world when built in 1982. He also designed the first
prestressed-steel arch bridge in the world at the Twin Cities
in Minnesota. |
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His own home in El Cerrito, CA was the first
residential structure in the world constructed using
prestressed concrete. |
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He received numerous awards during his
lifetime, including the National Medal of Science in 1986 -
the highest scientific honor in the U.S. |
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Who was this pioneering engineer? |
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read more |
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Engineering Feat of the Month |
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Monthly profile of America's greatest engineering
achievements. |
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The Longest Bridge / The Deepest Water |
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When completed in 1874, this was the longest
bridge in the world at the time with an overall length of
6,442 ft. And it was the first major project to use
structural alloy steel as the primary structural material. |
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The center arch (520 feet) and the side arches
(502 feet) were considerably longer than any built before.
Unable to erect falseworks to build the arches because they
would obstruct river traffic, a daring, new cantilever
construction method was used. The three arches were
built out from the piers until they met in the middle. |
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Pneumatic caissons, still among the deepest
ever sunk, were used to build the bridge piers and involved
the deepest underwater work ever attempted at the time.
The deep caissons revolutionized civil engineering, but
thirteen workers died during the pier construction due to
"caisson disease", also known as "the bends". |
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What was this engineering
marvel? |
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read more |
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1/31 |
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NH |
30 PDH |
Based on Engineer's Birthdate |
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NY |
36 PDH |
Based on Engineer's
Birthdate |
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OK |
30 PDH |
Based on Date of Licensure |
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SD |
30 PDH |
Based on Date of
Licensure |
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TN |
24 PDH |
Based on Date of Licensure |
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Check Your State's Requirements |
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Engineer Humor |
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A project
engineer is interviewing an electrician for a construction
job. "Can you roll your hard hat down your arm and make it
pop back on your head?", the engineer asks. |
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"Sure", he
replies, confused. |
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read more |
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