While much of the focus on sustainable design practices has been on buildings, the civil engineering community is showing it can make significant contributions to diminishing the environmental impact of the built environment, particularly roads and highways.

Implementation of engineering software should start with the development of standard workflows that are independent of a drafting platform. In this presentation, Bradley E. Adams, P.E., will discuss the benefits of supporting dual platforms for drafting and design and explain how interoperability standards can result in increased competition for projects that may lead to reduced costs for government agencies.

Here's the summary for the Thursday, Dec. 3 webcast, "Lightweight High Performance Concrete" presented by the National Highway Institute (NHI): Lightweight concrete has seen increasing use in bridge applications by State DOTs over the past several years. The internal curing properties of lightweight aggregates have provided the durability benefits associated with high performance concrete in bridge decks and girders. This webinar will provide an introduction to the use of lightweight concrete for bridges and transportation structures. Topics covered will include:

Corridor modeling -- there must be an easier way to do it!

Design changes are a reality in today’s civil engineering environment. With traditional road design tools, the design change process is often difficult and error prone - data and graphics are not synchronized, project team coordination suffers, and inaccurate construction documentation fuels costly RFIs.