The RED Letter
RED Engineering & Design
Structural Engineers
 June 2015
     
 
More videos in the works!  

 

We are getting ready to add three more videos to our series Engineering-in-a-Box. These will be fun, too, and chocked full of good information. The first video in the second series is planned for release in September.

If you haven't already checked out the first ones in our series, please click on: https://www.youtube.com/user/engineerinabox

 

Ten structural engineering fun facts 
 

It's June. It's summer (well, almost). Time for some fun!

  

1. The world's tallest Ferris wheel, extending 550 feet into the air, is named The High Roller. It's in Las Vegas and ticket prices range from $21.95 to $36.00 depending on the time of day.

  

2. The Hoover Dam is 726 feet tall. That is a little over an eighth of a mile. (BTW, if you're in Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam is just 33 miles to the southeast.)

The Hoover Dam 

  

3. The longest tunnel in the world is the Delaware Aqueduct. At 85.1 miles long, the aqueduct supplies water to New York City.  

Inside the Delaware Aqueduct during construction 

  

4. The second longest tunnel in the world-74.6 miles-is the Paijanne water supply tunnel located in Finland.

  

5. A very important structural element on a golf ball is its dimples. The dimples reduce wind drag and help the ball travel farther than a smooth-surfaced ball.

  

The dimpled golf ball 
 

6. One of the most difficult engineering projects, ever, was the Panama Canal. More than 25,000 workers perished from disease and landslides. Today, in a year's time, almost 14,000 ships travel across 50 miles of locks and lakes along the Isthmus of Panama.

  

Locks at the Panama Canal 

7. According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), the tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It is 2,717 feet tall which is a little over half-a-mile. It contains a hotel, restaurants, private residences, 37 floors of office space, and there is a 3,500-space underground parking garage. 
Burj Kahlifa

8. The world's longest continuous bridge over water is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. Actually, it is two parallel bridges and the longest one is 23.83 miles. The bridges are supported by 9,500 concrete pilings. 
The Lake Ponchartrain Causeway 

9. The tallest transmission tower in the world is the KVLY TV mast located in Blanchard, North Dakota. Built in 1963 in York, South Carolina, the tower still stands at 2,063 feet.

  

10. The word engineer is derived from two Latin words: 1)
ingeniare-to contrive, devise; and, 2) ingenium -cleverness.   
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Dates & Events
June 21, 2015: The Summer Solstice

About the masthead image:

The High Roller Ferris wheel in Las Vegas