What civil engineers are reading this week

• Trust in teamwork catapults Penn State to victory at ASCE UESI Surveying Competition

  The Nittany Lions are tops among a field of 19 finalists and 130 total teams. “Our skill sets complemented each other’s very well. We all trusted each other,” says team captain Kyle Kullman.

• Live updates: Officials say temporary shoring has stabilized buckling NYC high-rise

  New York officials are “confident” that the installation of temporary shoring is stabilizing an under-construction midtown Manhattan building that was evacuated after structural columns buckled.

• Johns Hopkins’ ‘breadth of expertise’ secures ASCE sustainable solutions title

  With Johns Hopkins University’s unusually small civil engineering department – only 10 students in the team’s co-captain’s graduating class – winning required a wide range of specialties. 

• Engineers solved an airflow mystery that was hidden nearly a mile underground

  A hidden underground airflow mystery was traced to an unlikely culprit: falling rainwater powerful enough to push vast amounts of air through deep mine shafts.

• How value engineering creates long-term value in water infrastructure projects

  Rather than focusing solely on upfront costs, value engineering seeks to optimize project life cycle, balancing expenditure, efficiency, reliability, maintenance requirements, and future adaptability.

• How Virginia became the world’s data center capital and how things are going

  From AOL’s arrival decades ago to the artificial intelligence boom, Virginia is the backbone of the internet economy. Lawmakers are debating how to manage soaring energy demands and economic influence.