1942: Civil Engineering

Domination of War-generated Construction.

War-generated construction, which had begun to rise to unprecedented heights in 1941, completely eclipsed all other types of civil engineering work in 1942 and carried the total construction volume to nearly $13,000,000,000 or about $1,500,000 above the previous all-time high of nearly $11,500,000 in 1941. The above estimate compiled by the War Production Board, presumably does not include the very considerable amount of construction being done outside the continental United States by the armed forces, but may include contract work for the army and navy on bases in the West Indies and the Pacific Islands.

Total contract awards for engineering construction for the year 1942 as compiled by Engineering News-Record rose to the unprecedented volume of $9,306,000,000 for 1942 as compared to $5,870,000,000 for the year 1941. Of this $8,241,000,000 was Federal works. State and municipal work declined sharply to $509,000,000. Private construction amounted to only $556,000,000 as compared to $1,178,000,000 in 1941.

The figures compiled by Engineering News-Record do not include small house construction nor any waterworks, drainage, irrigation or other contracts under $15,000, public works contracts under $25,000, industrial building work below $40,000 and other building work below $150,000.

Contract totals for the various classifications are as follows: waterworks, $151,000,000; sewerage, $118,000,000; bridges, $50,000,000; earth work and drainage $251,000,000; streets and roads, $531,000,000; public buildings, $5,678,000,000; industrial buildings, $200,000,000; commercial buildings, $292,000,000; unclassified, $2,034,000,000.

Geographically, the construction total was above last year in all areas except the Middle Atlantic States, where it was one per cent below last year. New England showed an increase of 47 per cent; the South, 52 per cent; the Middle West, 72 per cent; west of Mississippi, 80 per cent; Far West, 89 per cent.

It should be noted that these figures, which are the normal breakdowns that have been reported heretofore in these pages, do not fully reflect the way in which war-generated construction dominated the construction field in 1942. For example, most of the work here shown as industrial building was expansion of privately owned plants having war contracts as distinguished from war plants wholly financed by the Federal Government which fall into the classification of 'public buildings.' This class includes all the camp and hospital construction for the Army and Navy. Further, practically all the work classified as waterworks and sewerage was construction of water supply and sanitary facilities for new housing developments, for camps or for expansion of existing facilities in cities having to enlarge their sanitary services to accommodate houses built for war workers.

Curtailment of Construction.

Curtailment of construction not connected with the war effort was begun in 1941 under a system of priorities set up to give war work preference in the purchase of materials and equipment; further curtailment came in April 1942, when the WPB issued an order stopping the inauguration of any new non-residential construction in excess of $5,000; farm construction in excess of $1,000 and residential construction in excess of $500 without specific authority from the board. During the latter part of the year further orders shutting down specific jobs were issued. These applied chiefly to flood control projects and to some projects of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, but also included stoppage or curtailment of work on a few large public power projects, including some of those of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Under the WPB order of April 1942, practically all private construction not already under way was postponed indefinitely, and with a few exceptions, public works not directly connected with the war effort soon were shut down due to inability to get essential materials. An outstanding example is the South District's water purification plant at Chicago, which is badly needed because of increased pollution in Lake Michigan caused by expanding war industries along streams discharging into the lake.

At the end of the year the WPB estimated that it had issued stop orders affecting $1,200,000,000 of construction work, largely non-war buildings. It then expected to issue orders stopping $2,000,000,000 of the $6,000,000,000 of still uncompleted industrial expansion that had been authorized as part of the war effort. The WPB estimates that the construction total for 1943 will be $8,200,000,000 which while over $4,000,000,000 less than 1942 still will be in excess of the total for 1939, which was little affected by war developments.

Dams.

Dam building in 1942 continued the decline begun in 1941. Only a few new structures were started during the year and work on nearly all of them was stopped before the year was out as part of the WPB's program to conserve critical materials and manpower.

Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington, the world's greatest structure, 550 ft. high, 4,350 ft. long and containing 10,500,000 cu. yd. of concrete, was completed late in 1942 except for the power plants and minor details. On June 1, the 151-mile long reservoir had filled and water began to flow over the dam's spillway, which is 300 ft. high and 1,650 ft. long. Work on three additional 108,000 kw. units of the power plant, units L-7, L-8 and L-9, was stopped in November but work on three other units that will go into service in 1943 was continued.

Increasing the height of Ross Dam from 305 ft. to 487 ft. was proposed early in 1941 by the city of Seattle, Wash., to increase the firm output of the Skagit River power system by 79,000 kw. without adding new generators, but inability to get satisfactory bids from contractors delayed start of the work indefinitely. The dam is a variable-radius arch that was designed to permit progressive raising of the crest. The most recent increase in height was completed in 1940.

Friant Dam of the Central Valley power and irrigation project in California was completed in 1942. Work on Shasta Dam, a structure 602 ft. high and to contain 6,000,000 cu. yd. of concrete, was more than two-thirds complete at the end of 1942. Work on Keswick Dam, 9 miles below Shasta, a much smaller structure designed chiefly for power, was stopped in October when the structure was about half completed.

Santa Fe Dam, last of the large flood-control dams for the Los Angeles area to be put under contract was nearing completion at the end of 1942. It is an earth and gravel fill 92 ft. high and 23,800 ft. long.

Contracts for construction of Davis Dam in Bullshead Canyon on the Colorado River 67 miles below Boulder Dam, a rock-fill 140-ft. high for power development, were let in July, but that work also was stopped in October. At Parker Dam, farther downstream, the first power units went into service.

Work on Green Mountain and Grandby dams of the Colorado-Big Thompson irrigation and power project also was stopped late in the year as was work on the Continental Divide tunnel of that project which will divert water from the headwaters of the Colorado to the east slope of the Rocky Mountains.

In Idaho, work was begun on the great Anderson Ranch Dam, an earth-fill structure 330 ft. high to store water for irrigation, but it was stopped before the end of the year.

Dams of flood-control projects in the Southwest that were near completion, generally, were permitted to go ahead but no new work was authorized except at Houston, Texas, where construction of a 10-mi. long earth dike of the Harris County Flood Control & Improvement District was put under contract. Work on Markham Ferry Dam and Fort Gibson of the Arkansas River flood control work was stopped but work on Norfolk Dam and Arkabutla Dam was permitted to go ahead.

In the Southeastern states, work on Allatonna Dam on the Coosa River in Georgia, a flood-control and power project was stopped, as was work on Wolf Creek and Center Hill dams of the Cumberland River flood control work, which was started in 1941. Two dams of the TVA that were started recently, Watauga and South Holston, were ordered stopped. The same is true of High Point Dam on the Yadkin River in North Carolina, a power project. Work on other TVA dams went ahead, including the great Kentucky Dam near the mouth of the Tennessee River.

Up in the Ohio Valley, a contract for Bluestone Dam at the headwaters of the New River was let in January 1941, but that work was stopped in late November. Berlin Dam on the Mahoning River, a unit of the long projected Beaver-Mahoning Canal system to connect the Ohio with the Great Lakes, was put under contract in January to augment the industrial water supply of the Youngstown area. It is an earth-fill structure with concrete outlet works and spillway.

Above Pittsburgh, work continued on Youghiogheny Dam on the river of that name, the third of three dams to be built to reduce floods at Pittsburgh. The completed dams were of material help in reducing the crest of the flood of early January, 1943.

The last two dams of the current flood-control program in Susquehanna River basin were completed in 1942, as were the remaining two in New England. No new dams were started in the North Atlantic region.

Work on Merriman Dam, a major element of the new Delaware water supply system for New York, was largely discontinued during the year. It is an earth fill 200 ft. high and 2,500 ft. long with a concrete cutoff wall sunk to rock. The wall was completed early in 1942.

Bridges.

Bridge construction, especially the construction of large bridges requiring much steel, was drastically curtailed in 1942 because of the need for steel for war work. Contracts declined from $111,600,000 in 1941 to $50,200,000 in 1942, and these were chiefly small bridges of reinforced concrete or timber. Use of timber for bridge construction increased considerably during the year, the most outstanding instance being the 1,670-mile Alaska Highway where all the bridges were built of timber. As some of the streams crossed on that work have permanently frozen bottoms, the bridges are carried on timber cribs sunk to the frozen bottom and filled with rock.

The principal bridges under construction during the year were the new highway bridge over the Connecticut River at Hartford, which was completed following the collapse of one of the main spans during erection on Dec. 4, 1941; the new high-level highway bridge over the Thames River at New London, Conn.; and a long highway bridge over the Mississippi River at Dubuque, Iowa. This latter bridge is notable in that the foundation of one of its main river piers was sand filled to save weight, a saving of 1,120 tons over the weight of a solid concrete pier being attained. This materially reduced the amount of piling required to support the pier in the unfavorable material of the river bottom.

Restrictions on travel across the Canadian border and curtailment of automobile traffic due to the rubber and gasoline shortage made it necessary for two international bridges to default on their bonds, the Thousand Islands Bridge over the St. Lawrence River and the new Rainbow Arch Bridge at Niagara Falls. The Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco also is in financial difficulties and its operation may be taken over by the state.

Scrapping of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in November 1940, was undertaken during the year, the unspinning of the cables being in progress as the year closed. Design studies for a new bridge are being continued.

Buildings.

Building construction during 1942 was dominated by the needs of war industries and such new developments as occurred were chiefly in industrial types. Many of these were the outgrowth of the shortage of steel for structural purposes. Efforts to find satisfactory ways to substitute reinforced concrete and timber resulted in some novel designs.

Especially notable were building frames in which columns are made of reinforced concrete and in which beams, purlins and rafters are of laminated glued timber. Spans of 61½ ft. were provided in this way in a Wisconsin plant for the Defense Plant Corp.

In a hangar built for Navy blimps, the roof is framed of timber arches of 246-ft. span supported on reinforced concrete A-frames 24 ft. high to give a clear height above floor of 171 ft. Split-ring connectors were used in fabricating these timber arches. The largest span timber arches built heretofore were those of 200-ft. span that were built for one of the exposition buildings at the San Francisco Fair in 1939.

During the year experiments were made in designs for plate girders fabricated out of plywood using ring connectors. One such design was used in a new building at Camden, N.J., for the Radio Corporation of America.

The year saw wide use of substitutes for other scarce building materials. Thus, sheets and ducts of asbestos-cement were widely used in place of copper, galvanized iron and aluminum for roof, siding, gutters and downspouts on buildings.

The most notable building of the year was the Pentagon Building erected in Arlington, Va. to house the War Department. It is the world's largest building, having a frontage of 921 ft. on each of its five facades and a total floor area of 4,000,000 sq. ft. Generally five stories high, the building has a frame and floors of reinforced concrete and walls of brick faced with limestone. All details were simplified to reduce the cost and speed of the construction, which took a little over a year.

The pentagon shape around a 4-acre central court was chosen to minimize travel between sections of the building. Movements between floors is chiefly by large ramps and by stairs. Driveways through the lower floors permit direct bus delivery and collection of the employees.

Provisions for blackouts are made in the design of most of the new buildings, and in some instances, the designers have had to make elaborate provision for the support of camouflage nets above and around buildings for key war industries in exposed locations.

As a means for saving structural steel, the WPB ordered that in all war buildings the allowable stress in structural steel be increased from 20,000 to 24,000 lb. per sq. in. and required designers to certify that they had used designs that were most economical of steel. It also had prepared designs for seven types of mill buildings to demonstrate how steel could be saved, these designs being used as a check against the amount of steel required per unit of space in designs prepared by outside engineers and architects.

Similarly, the WPB ordered the allowable stress in structural-grade reinforcing bars raised from 18,000 to 20,000 lb. per sq. in., and for hard bars, from 20,000 to 24,000 lb. Allowable tension in concrete in reinforced structures was increased from three to four percent depending on the class of work. Wider use of reinforced concrete beyond limits now set by building codes also was authorized.

Highways.

Highway operations in 1942 were characterized by a continuation of the sharp decline in construction that began in 1941. A limited amount of new work on the strategic highway network that had been put under way in 1941 was continued, but all idea of actively pressing work on that network as a war measure was abandoned early in the year. Offsetting in part this curtailment of work on the strategic network was the construction of a large mileage of access roads to military establishments and war industries. Chief among the latter undertaking was the Detroit Industrial Expressway, a superhighway built to give better connections between Detroit and the war industries of the cities to the west. The expressway extends for a distance of 16 mi. westerly from the city limits. Ultimately, it will form part of a superhighway to Chicago. Near Ypsilanti it connects with a large system of access roads serving the Ford Willow Run bomber plant.

Outstanding among highway construction projects of 1941 was the 1,670-mile Alcan highway, built as a war measure. It extends from the end of rail at Dawson Creek in British Columbia north through Yukon Territory to a connection with the Alaska highway system at Big Delta, south of Fairbanks. Begun in March when Army engineer troops were moved in over the frozen rivers and lakes before the spring break-up, the road was opened for its entire length to traffic on Nov. 20, thus establishing a world record for highway building, largely through a rugged wilderness. The road has a gravel surface throughout with a minimum width of 18 ft., and a width of 20 to 24 ft. for much of its length. Some of it is built over permanently frozen ground, and other parts are on locations that may be flooded by high water in the spring. Bridges at present are all of timber, largely cut in clearing the right-of-way. Many are of a temporary nature that will be destroyed in the spring freshets and will have to be replaced. Steel structures on concrete piers are being built for some of the major river crossings.

Construction of the road was carried forward by Army engineer units and a large force of civilian road contractors from this country and Canada.

Another military road-building operation put under way during 1942 was completion of the missing links in the Inter-American Highway from southern Mexico to Panama. About 1,000 miles of the proposed road from the southern border of Mexico to Panama have been completed and there remains about 625 miles yet to be built. In July the United States Government came to an agreement with the governments of the Central American states for the completion of a 'pioneer road' at the earliest possible date. The work is to be financed by the United States Government, and American contractors have been engaged to take charge of part or all of the work, but it is believed that local labor will be used as far as possible. Possibly some United States Army engineer units will be used, as in the case of the highway to Alaska.

The proposed road is to be made passable in all weathers. It will have a width of from 10 to 16 ft., with an 8-in. gravel surface. Grades will be held to 10 per cent and curvatures to a radius of not less than 66 ft.

Mexico has built hard-surfaced roads from the United States border to Mexico City and south to a point near Oxaca. It is actively engaged on completion of a road from that point to the Guatemala border.

Construction of a highway across the Isthmus of Panama to connect the two ends of Panama Canal, begun in 1941, was completed in the spring of 1942. It extends from the end of the highway built some years ago from the city of Panama to Madden Dam, about half-way across the Isthmus, through virgin territory to Colon, a distance of about 25 miles.

Connecticut put into service during the year additional sections of the Wilbur Cross Parkway, the principal one being the Connecticut River Crossing below Hartford.

Driving the twin tubes for a vehicle tunnel from the lower end of Manhattan Island under the East River to Brooklyn was continued until late in 1942 when the WPB ordered the work shut down to conserve critical materials. Work on the second tube for the Lincoln vehicle tunnel under the Hudson River at New York also was continued, including the approach plaza in New York. Approaches for both tubes on the New Jersey side were built when the first tube was constructed.

Because of the scarcity of steel, state highway departments in 1941 began to build concrete pavements without reinforcing steel and without steel load-transfer devices at expansion joints. That trend gained acceptance in 1942, being formalized by the issue of tentative designs for such pavements by the Highway Research Board. Slabs are thickened, expansion joints are spaced farther apart, and planes of weakness to concentrate cracking and reduce slab movement at expansion joints are formed in the pavement at close intervals.

Highway maintenance operations increased in 1942, especially in areas where there are many war industries. This increase is due in part to heavier truck loadings and to a sustained truck traffic despite restrictions on the use of gasoline and rubber, and in part to inability to replace old highways that call for a large amount of maintenance. These operations were handicapped by loss of men to the armed forces and war industries and by inability to replace equipment and difficulties in getting repair parts. Also, due to the transportation situation, use of asphalt oils was restricted, first in the Eastern States, then as far west as the Rocky Mountains, and finally for the whole country. This shortage of asphalt oils resulted in a further limitation on highway construction and maintenance. It also expanded the use of tars in areas within reasonable distance of the producing centers.

Looking ahead, all highway work except that directly connected with the war effort such as access roads to new war industries will be further curtailed in 1943. Maintenance operations on the roadway itself will increase, through such maintenance work as is normally done to keep the right-of-way in condition will be largely eliminated due to the manpower situation. About half the states expect to increase their maintenance expenditures above those of last year. This trend may be expected to increase as the war period lengthens. Many secondary roads with light surfacing may have to be permitted to revert to earth roads if road oils and labor continue to be scarce.

The volume of highway construction in 1942 was lower than any since 1938, but still totaled above $530,000,000 due in large part to Federal expenditures for access roads.

Water Supply.

Construction of new water supplies and expansion of existing facilities continued at a high rate during 1942 due to the increasing demands of war industries, the growth of new communities around those industries and military bases and the construction of army camps and training centers. In some communities curtailment of normal water use was called for to make it possible for existing facilities to meet expanding domestic or industrial requirements.

Although all work not directly connected with the war was ordered to be drastically curtailed, a great amount of work generated by war activities raised the total of water-supply contracts for 1942 to $151,000,000, practically twice the work done in 1941.

Most notable of the war-generated projects is that serving the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News area in Virginia where expansion of military facilities brought an increase of 300 per cent in water demands. Major items of that undertaking were the construction of 19 miles of 42-in, reinforced concrete pipe, 32 mi. of 34- and 39-in. pipe and 14 mi. of auxiliary lines in the 34- and 39-in. sizes. To do this job that normally would have taken two to three years in less than a year, required the construction of the largest concrete pipe-casting yard ever built.

Work on Chicago's South District water purification plant, the largest in the world, having a capacity of 320,000,000 gal. per day, was brought to a near standstill by shortage of critical materials. The plant is about half complete.

Construction of the tunnels for New York's new Delaware System continued during the year, but other work was held up due to inability to obtain critical materials and equipment.

A new development in water softening is the 'Spirator' process, the first municipal installation of which was made at Teutopolic, Ill. Outstanding features are use of a short detention period — 5 to 10 min. — and the production of a granular waste instead of the large quantity of lime sludge that characterizes most municipal softening plants. Size of the plant also is smaller than plants of similar capacity built heretofore. This process involves the principle of catalytic precipitation, granular material acting as the nuclei around which deposits of calcium and magnesium are built up.

The need for emergency sterilization of water supplies in case of damage to existing domestic systems by bombing raids as well as the need for mobile units for military purposes led during the year to considerable development of mobile chlorinator units by manufacturers of such products.

Sewage Disposal.

As in the case of water supply, sewage disposal operations during 1942 were devoted chiefly to treatment of waste from military camps, from housing developments for war workers and from new war industries. Here again the total of work put under contract, $118,400,000, was considerably in excess of the 1941 work, $88,700,000.

New problems were introduced by the war industries, many of which have waste with characteristics differing from the waste of more normal industrial plants.

Because of the shortage of materials, traditional designs were modified considerably, heavy unreinforced concrete being used in place of reinforced concrete, wood being substituted for steel, and concrete or asbestos-cement pipe for metal pipe. Notable work was done by the army in the design of wooden Imhoff tanks, some of very large size. Manufacturers also made similar changes in equipment for sewage disposal plants, one company substituting wood for 62 per cent of the steel formerly required for its equipment.

The army made 25 installations of the Hays process for sewage disposal, a process little known heretofore in this country and only used for populations under 5,000. Army installations have raised the population load to as high as 40,000. This process consists essentially of preliminary sedimentation followed by successive stages of treatment by means of a submerged contact aeration and final clarification.

The army also has undertaken to reclaim laundry waste to conserve water at points where the supply is costly.

A new process for removing grease, scum and oil has been installed in a sewage treatment plant at San Diego, Calif.; it was developed by the Dorr Company and is known as the 'Vacuator.'