2008 Best Inventions of the Year

Run, ride, swim, and sing through some of TIME Magazine's best inventions of the year:

Best Inventions:

source: http://www.time.com/time/video/

World's Tallest Building Just Got Taller

AFP - Wednesday, September 3

DUBAI (AFP) - - The world's tallest building just got taller -- the Burj Dubai tower in the booming Gulf emirate of Dubai has now reached a height of 688 metres (2,257 feet) and is still growing, developers Emaar said on Tuesday.

It now boasts 160 storeys, the highest skyscraper in the world, Emaar said in a statement.

The skyscraper, set for completion in September 2009, is one of several mega projects taking shape in Dubai, which is a member of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) federation.

Burj Dubai, which was started in 2004, overtook Taiwan's Taipei 101 tower as the world's tallest building when it reached 512 metres (1,533 feet) in April 2007.

It became the tallest man-made structure on the planet, when Emaar announced in April that it has surpassed the 629-metre (2,063-foot) KVLY-TV mast in the United States.

Its eventual height remains a closely-guarded secret, though there is speculation it will reach a final height of 900 metres (2,953 feet).

It had been due for completion in the bustling city state at the end of 2008, but Emaar said in June that "finishing touches" had pushed back the date until September next year.

The skyscraper is being built by a consortium involving Arabtec Construction LLC of the UAE, Samsung of South Korea and Besix of Belgium.

Many building projects in Dubai, which is going through a construction frenzy, have been facing delays caused by shortage of building materials and skilled labour.

source: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/

New ISO standard for safe, long-lasting buildings and structures

ISO has published a new standard to help engineers, builders, and regulators to design structures that are safe and resistant to failure due to environmental and mechanical stresses, and to material degradation.

Buildings, civil engineering works, industrial structures, and their components should be conceived, constructed, inspected, maintained and repaired in such a way that, under foreseeable environmental conditions, they maintain their required performance during their design lives with sufficient reliability for the safety and comfort of users and the intended use of the structure.

ISO 13823:2008—General Principles on the Design of Structures for Durability specifies general principles and recommends procedures for the verification of the durability of structures subject to known or foreseeable environmental actions, including mechanical actions, causing material degradation leading to failure of performance. It will help to ensure reliability of performance throughout the service life of the structure.

This International Standard has the following objectives:

• to improve the evaluation and design of structures for durability by the incorporation of building science principles into structural engineering practice, and
• to provide a framework for the development of mathematical models to predict the service life of components of the structure.

Prof. A.M. Brandt, Chair of ISO/TC 98, Bases for Design of Structures, comments, "The general principles in the verification and design of structures and components for durability in this International Standard should be used whenever a minimum service life is required, for new structures as well as for the assessment of existing structures."

The standard is intended to serve a similar harmonization role that ISO 2394:1998, General Principles on Reliability for Structures, has had over the past 30 years for the verification and design of structures against failure due to mechanical stress, ranging from gravity to wind, snow, and earthquake.

The goal is to ensure that all analytical models are incorporated into the limit states method, the same as currently used for the verification and design of structures.

ISO 13823:2008 covers the following topics:

• basic concept for verifying durability,
• durability requirements,
• design life of a structure and its components,
• predicted service life, and
• strategies for durability design.

This International Standard does not directly address sustainability for structures. Most considerations of sustainability, such as the choice of material as it affects waste and energy consumption, are outside its scope. But indirectly, durable structures improve the sustainability of infrastructure.

ISO 13823—General Principles on the Design of Structures for Durability, was developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 98, Bases for Design of Structures, Subcommittee SC 2, Reliability of Structures. For more information visit www.iso.org.

source: http://www.gostructural.com/