Industry Day at VT

I. Mobile Crane

The first exibit I came to was the crane. I was already set up with all outriggers out to prevent it from tipping over. About 75 feet away was a partially constructed wall section with the top piece waiting to be lifted into place. The crane operator picked one student to act as a guide to place the load, he uses a series of hand singals to instruct the operator where to move the load. Another group acted as the rigging crew and tag lie guide, the riggin crew hooked four straps to the boom of the crane. The tag line helps guide the load and keeps it from swaying in the air. After about fifteen minutes they had finally guided the load onto the mock-up wall and bolted it up. All the hand singals were regulated by OSHA.

II. Backhoe Simulator

The next exibit was a $46,000 simulator. It uses GPS technology that is uploaded to a handheld decive that can be pluged into any machine on the site. The program then transmits into the machine all data from any drawings pertaining to the site. This all comes up on a disply next to the driver of the machine. This was diminstrated by using a backhoe simulator. The simulator is used by American Infastructure to train it's dozer drivers. This technology makes working a site more effeicent and precise down to millimeters. All of this translates into a more effiecent site and more productivity. They also lets students see what it was like to use the simulator. This was my favorite part as it was much harder to drive and use the dozer than it looks.

III. Chandler Inc. Cement Mixer

The next exibit was a cement truck for Chandler Inc., which is a mid atlantic cement contractor. The driver told us that this Mack truck was new with under 5,000 miles and had just been washed. The cost new for the truck was in excess of $160,000. The truck's mixer can hold up to 10.5 cubic yards of concrete, although DOT regulations only allow them to carry 7.25 cubic yards on most public roads. The truck has two other tanks onboard one with water and the other with a high pressure gas used in mixing the concrete. Thsi truck is also equiped with a $12,000 exhaust stack that has near 0 emissions fron the turbo diesel engine. Making this truck environmentally friendly and effecient.







IV. Trimble Site Posistioning

The forth exibit is a new site surveying tool using GPS and realtime posistioning technology. What used to take a team of surveyors now only takes one man who can upload the information from inside his truck. This technology is quickly becoming an industry standard and is doing away with old surveying and site control methods. Thsi device can upload all of its information to a program that will then send it to all equipment on site making for a saver and more efficient site controls.






V. American Infastructure Motor Grader

A VT grad named Walter worked this piece of equipment he stressed the need for civil engineers to know programs such as AutoCad and GPS technology used in these machines. He reinforced what had already been said about the GDP surveyor unit.







Interesting Points:

I found the crane simulator and conrete mixer to be the most interesting because of their complexity, size, and shear cost. Though both seem simple there is a lot of technology and precision that goes into their operation. The concrete mixer has different valaves for pressure of water in different concrete mixes plus the operator has to know when the correct mix is ready and how much to pour. The crane simulator showed that operating heavy quipment takes a lot skill and training to master the art.

Workers have spent the past several months installing the hokiestone exterior to the New Residence Hall West. As you can see the are installing it in a diagonal method working four floors of scafoling at the same time. This process is very time consuming and looks to require skilled labor to set the stone straight and in a fashion so that the other stones will fit properly.

I have also included a photo taken several months ago showing the blackcat that was applied to the CMU before the stone could be layed on. There was also work going on on the inside where they seemed to be finishing off the interior walls and sealing off the remaining parts of the building that were exposed to the outside.

A plastic covering over much of the buildings exterior which provide a way for the motar to dry and be kept out of the winter weather.

Sketches

I had to sketch 3 different sets of drawings.
1.) BFH Drawings which include a steele beam section, a section view from the drop ceiling to the drip pan, a stairwell plan view, a detailed stairwell drawing, the tread plan, and a section view of the stairwell.

2.) In the drawings of my dorm room I showed the plan view (floor plan) and a section of the exterior wall and interior wall. The exterior wall showed the CMU, window seal, hokiestone, insulation, and the window itself. The interior wall section showed the CMU, doorframe, header, trim, and encasing above the door itself.

3.) I also drew two sections of the mock up on Perry Street. One showed the hokiestone, CMU, insulation, and foam board. The other showed Cast-In-Place concrete, CMU, insulation, and the foam board.