The purpose of this project was to convert the existing at-grade crossing of Brazoria County Road 56 (CR 56) and State Highway 288 (SH 288) into a diamond interchange that includes a new overpass bridge and providing access to the newly developed Meridiana Development. Coordination with TXDOT, area landowners, utility companies, and Brazoria County was integral in obtaining approval and acceptance of the project. The main design challenge for this project was to accommodate double intersections on the west side of SH 288 to tie into existing access roads with two-way traffic and a new southbound on-ramp within a close proximity. EHRA coordinated with TxDOT throughout the project from preliminary concepts for the intersection and bridge through final design and construction. Each component of this project was designed in accordance with TxDOT standards and criteria.
The facility features an activated sludge process system. Additionally, the facility is equipped with an emergency standby diesel generator.
The new roadway design comprises of one-half major thoroughfare, conventional drainage, a 600-ft long bridge over Willow Fork Bayou, Retaining walls and intersection improvements at FM 1463 (including traffic signals and illumination).
In 2006, Caldwell Companies sought to create Towne Lake as a community where residents and services could be connected by water. Their vision included boat docks and marinas augmenting traditional walking trails to navigate a vibrant residential community. EHRA was the perfect partner to take Caldwell Companies’ vision and create this livable suburban oasis.
Identified as a top priority during the development of the District’s Parks Master Plan, this portion of trail was the first phase of over two miles of planned trails to provide connectivity and recreation for District residents.
In work that could help prevent the failure of everything from bridges to dental implants, a team led by a researcher at Texas A&M University has taken the first 3D image of a microscopic crack propagating through a metal damaged by hydrogen. They have caught the crack red-handed! Previously, the only way to analyze such a metal failure was to look at the separated pieces of a completely fractured component, which entails a certain amount of guesswork. The new research shows what is happening at the crack tip as a part begins to fracture. As a result, the team identified 10 microscopic structures that make metals stronger and less susceptible to a key environmental factor -- the hydrogen around us -- that can damage them.
Their work is published in Nature Communications. It was conducted using two powerful tools at Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source (APS), and represents a milestone for one of those tools as the first experiment performed by researchers outside of the development team at Argonne and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The study took eight years to complete, primarily because it involved huge amounts of data that were difficult to analyze. The raw data for the work would fill almost 400 DVDs. Further, the data looks nothing like a 3D model of the material.
Source: Texas A&M University/Science Daily