Editor Picks

A floor tile paving robot is an advanced automated machine designed to efficiently lay tiles on various surfaces with high precision and speed. Utilizing sensors, computer vision, and pre-programmed algorithms, these robots can place tiles accurately, reducing human error and labor costs. They are capable of handling different tile materials, sizes, and patterns. By automating repetitive and physically demanding tasks, floor tile paving robots improve productivity while maintaining consistent quality and alignment, which is particularly beneficial in commercial and industrial settings. In addition to enhancing efficiency, floor tile paving robots contribute to workplace safety by minimizing the need for manual lifting and bending, which can lead to injuries in traditional […] Read More

Below is a curated list of major upcoming international events in the construction and civil engineering industries, organized chronologically for your convenience. These events cover a broad spectrum of specialties, including structural, geotechnical, water resources, transportation, and construction project management. Geo-Extreme 2025 – November 2–5, 2025 – Long Beach, CA, USAThis specialty conference by the ASCE Geo-Institute focuses on Geotechnical Engineering for extreme events, including seismic hazards, landslides, and climate-related challenges. https://www.asce.org/geo-institute 2025 Annual Water Resources Conference – November 10–12, 2025 – Denver, CO, USAThe premier national event by the American Water Resources Association (AWRA), covering all facets of Water Resources Engineering and management, policy, and climate impacts.https://www.awra.org PMI Global […] Read More

Masonry construction dates back thousands of years. The builders of the past, took advantage of compression strength of stone and were still able to build amazing structures, without even possessing the technology to take on tensile forces, which only became possible in modern times with steel. In our age though, masonry is also combined with reinforcing steel, to make it much more ductile and resistant to loads. Masonry can be stone or brick. Today’s masonry is mainly in the form of manufactured bricks, such as CMU – Concrete Masonry Units, which are also reinforced with steel bars. From now we will mean brick masonry in this post. Both stone and […] Read More

Geotechnical engineering is one of the five main branches in civil engineering, which can further be categorized into soil mechanics, foundation engineering, retaining structures and excavations. Geotechnical engineering is a branch that interacts with all other branches, after all, every structure needs foundation system. Geotechnical engineering failures are usually among the costliest to fix, if the fix is possible at all in the first place. Before we discuss failures, we should briefly describe how the process works in geotechnical engineering, which is something not many people may be familiar. The process in geotechnical engineering starts with a site investigation, after the site is decided on by the owner of the […] Read More

This is one of the posts in a series of our posts that we discuss failures. Also check out the other posts in constructmagazine.com, where we discuss failures in different contexts of civil engineering. A Brief Introduction of Earthquakes vs. Structures: Earthquakes are very important aspect of most design in civil engineering, and for any type of structure. The fundamental earthquake principles as it applies to structures are of course the same, although there are specific items that apply to each structure. Here we will discuss earthquake related failures in buildings. Earthquakes result from movements of large land masses, which in turn affect structures, by making them move too. Since […] Read More

Structural engineering is a major branch of civil engineering, and realistically the first thing that comes to mind of many, when the words civil engineering are mentioned. It deals with designing the body of all types of structures and their supplementary components, connections, attachments per the criteria given in codes, to ensure public comfort and safety. As we mentioned in the previous post in Construct Magazine, failures in civil engineering, structures can fail in so many ways but they can all be grouped under several categories. Let’s list them below… Structural Failure Types in Materials and Members: Structural members can fail as a result of many reasons such as: Yielding […] Read More

To understand what liquefaction is, we must first understand shear stress in soils, which in turn means, the strength of soil… Load carrying capacity of any material arises from its shear strength. Soils, rocks, which carry our structures are no exception to this rule. The greater a foundation material has shear strength, the better it can support our structures with less settlement. Shear strength is a result of how well the particles of a material stick to each other, and, the resistance they provide when they are made to slide over each other. In other words, Shear strength = The resistance provided particles sticking to each other + The resistance […] Read More

For non engineers, structural analysis may seem like an overly complex subject. A person who is not a civil engineer will never be required or even allowed to solve a real structure, but it is still good to give some general idea for learning. This came to my mind when I heard a question once, from a nonengineer, who drew sketch of a really simple structure and asked if we solve this member by member such as column by column, slab by slab and beam by beam. This is of course not correct and civil engineers know that it doesn’t work that way… So for people who are not civil […] Read More