INGLES I Nombre y Apellido:

Especialidad: Ingeniería Civil

Prof. Mariana Carro

Lea detenidamente el texto y realice las actividades que se detallan a continuación:

I- Responde a las siguientes preguntas:
1- ¿Qué medidas se tomaron después que colapsó el puente en Agosto del 2007?
2- ¿Cuál es la función de los sensores en las estructuras?
3- ¿Esta nueva tecnología es solamente utilizada en puentes?
4- Según el texto ¿cuál es el mayor inconveniente con el hormigón?
5- Menciona una de las formas propuestas para mejorar el hormigón y hacerlo más
resistente al agua.
6- Explica qué es lo que el texto denomina “sensor skin”

II- Traducir en español los dos primeros párrafos bajo el subtítulo “Next could be
nanotechnology”

Technology for Tomorrow

How tech is helping to build better buildings

Grant Buckler

On August 1, 2007, the bridge carrying Interstate 35W across the Mississippi River at
Minneapolis collapsed. Thirteen died, 145 were injured.

On September 18, 2008, the fallen bridge's replacement opened. The new St. Anthony Falls
Bridge contains 323 sensors to monitor for structural weaknesses, strained joints and corroded
concrete.

It's one way technology can make structures – from bridges to office towers – safer, stronger
and better looking. Stronger concrete and steel makes structures more stable and permits
innovative designs, while sensors warn before disaster strikes.

Usually, says Catherine French, a structural engineering professor at the University of

Minnesota who heads a project to collect and interpret data from the new bridge, sensors
suggest issues requiring investigation and possibly repairs. In earthquake zones, though, they
might even close gates like those on railway crossings when they detect sudden damage.

Sensor-equipped bridges remain rare, but are growing more common. And while bridges are an
obvious place to use sensors, dams and levees are also good candidates, Ms. French says. Even
ordinary buildings could use sensors to detect signs of trouble.

Meanwhile, researchers are working on stronger, more durable materials.

A good deal of work has focused on concrete. Concrete isn't completely impervious to water,
which dissolves loose lime in the concrete, creating microscopic channels through which water
can penetrate farther. In cold climates, the water freezes and expands, enlarging the cracks. The
water also rusts reinforcing steel.
New forms of concrete aim to eliminate these problems by making the concrete more
waterproof. The St. Anthony Falls Bridge is made of high-performance concrete containing
coal-combustion byproducts fly ash and silica fume, making it denser and more waterproof,
says Alan Phipps, senior vice-president and director of operations at Tallahassee, Fla.-based
FIGG Bridge Engineers, which built it. Materials like this mean bridges built today could last
100 years, versus 40 to 50 for older bridges, he says.

Ultra High Performance Fibre-Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC) embeds microscopic steel fibres
in the concrete, giving it more than 10 times the strength of conventional concrete, says Vic
Perry, Lafarge SA's North American vice-president and general manager for Ductal – Lafarge's
trade name for UHPFRC. “You can make a bridge deck with no reinforcing steel.”

UHPFRC also won't break off in chunks as reinforced concrete can. Researchers in Britain have
explored its behaviour in explosions and potential for use in security barriers and buildings
where terrorist attacks could be a threat. A conventional concrete wall will stop a blast, but the
shock wave can propel bits of concrete off the far side, injuring bystanders, says Steve Millard,
an engineering professor at University of Liverpool and head of a UHPFRC research project
there. UHPFRC won't do that.

A Canadian company, Whitemud Resources Ltd. of Calgary, is promoting water-resistant

concrete made with metakaolin. Kaolin, a white claylike material used to make porcelain and
fine paper, was historically scarce, but a 160-million-ton deposit was found in Saskatchewan
several years ago, says Barry Lester, chairman of Whitemud. Heating kaolin to about 800
degrees Celsius creates metakaolin, a powder that makes a more water-resistant concrete.
Metakaolin has been used in several projects in Canada already, Mr. Lester says.

Next could be nanotechnology.

Calcium silicate hydrate, a naturally occurring material in cement, is made up of particles

little more than a nanometre in size, says Laila Raki, group leader for concrete materials at
the National Research Council's Institute for Research in Construction in Ottawa. Scientists
only recently developed the tools to manipulate its behaviour at the nanoscale, she says, but
by doing so they can make concrete stronger and denser.

The institute is also experimenting with using other nanomaterials as additives, again with
the goal of producing tougher, more durable concrete.

Carbon nanotubes have been incorporated in steel to give it added strength, says David Sykes,
managing partner of Remington Partners of Cambridge, Mass., which advises companies on
new technologies. Stronger steel permits soaring, airy designs such as those of architect
Santiago Calatrava, who designed BCE Place in downtown Toronto. Nanomaterials can also
make steel more flexible, he says, so tall structures better withstand wind and other stresses.

And Jerome Lynch, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor, heads a research group that has developed a mixture of carbon
nanotubes and polymer that is very strong and has electrical properties that let it act as a sensor
skin. Mr. Lynch says this skin, which he hopes to subject to tests on real-world structures in
about a year, “essentially provides a detailed multidimensional view of the behaviour of a
structure.” Applied like paint or in prefabricated panels, it would provide both protection and
constant updates on a structure's condition from all over its surface rather than just a few spots.