Factory and Industrial Management Volume 26 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...S. Morison says, referring to the crux of the whole work, the Culebra cut: --"No work has ever been undertaken on which ihc highest class of practical engineering talent could produce so great economies as in this particular great concentrated excavation. The Isthmian Canal Commission estimated the cost of this excavation at 80 cents per cubic yard; had management would quickly raise this to a dollar, and it is not impossible that with a carefully considered equipment the cost could be reduced to 60 cents. In this single cut, $25,000,000 is an easy measure of the difference between competent and incompetent management." Proceedings of Ihc American Society of Civil Engineers, January, 1903. In building the Bohio dam, to form Lake Bohio, the summit level of the canal, caissons must be sunk to a depth of 128 feet, and here, again, enters the human factor. Pneumatic work has hitherto not been carried on at a depth below the surface exceeding i ro to 115 feet. The additional depth means an atmospheric pressure greater by five or six pounds to the square inch. The unprecedented depth has 'frightened some engineers from the project. Professor William H. Burr, of the Commission said in a hearing before a Congressional subcommittee February 21, 1902: --"The depth of 128 feet is greater than has yet been reached by the pneumatic process of constructing foundations, the process ordinarily used in such work; but there arc methods of reaching that great depth which are entirely feasible. The physical features of the situation are such at Bohio that I am perfectly confident, from my own experience in engineering work, the foundations of that dam can be put in place without using air pressures higher than those which have been encountered in other works.&quot...