2007 Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award Winners
The 2007 Delaware Valley Engineers Week Outstanding Engineering Achievement
Award winners selected at the recent Philadelphia Chapter of the Pennsylvania
Society of Professional Engineers are as follows:
Outstanding Engineering
Achievement
Wind Turbine Manufacturing Plant, Fairless Hills, PA
Burns Engineering, Inc.
Innovative Wind Turbine Manufacturing Plant Wins Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award
Gamesa Wind, Inc. and Burns Engineering, Inc. have been awarded the
Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers - Philadelphia Chapter 2007 Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award for the innovative use of an abandoned U.S. Steel plant in Bucks
County, PA. Spanish firm Gamesa Wind, the number two producer of
wind turbines worldwide, has aggressively ramped up production of its
wind turbines here in order to enter the U.S. alternative energy
market. The award recognizes the design and construction
innovations that allowed Gamesa to rapidly begin meeting domestic
demand for wind turbines, create manufacturing jobs for the area,
ensure clean non-fossil fuel sources for the U.S. and reuse an
environmentally blighted area. Burns helped Gamesa reuse the Brownfield site through innovative
methods of renovating and reactivating a 250,000 square foot steel
plant into a state-of-the art wind turbine manufacturing
facility. The plant is now capable of producing two, 300-foot
tall steel and carbon fiber wind towers every day. Working
closely with state and local economic development and regulatory
agencies, the site was ready for initial production within six months.
Renovating an existing building in a timely manner was critical to
meeting the market window for Gamesa products. Recycling a
Brownfield also saved thousands of tons of waste from landfills in
comparison to constructing a new building. The project contributes many social, economic and environmental
benefits. The Gamesa plant is now manufacturing two wind turbines
per day. One year's production output from the plant has the
potential energy generating capacity of 700 megawatts of clean,
non-fossil fuel electricity, which is enough to power nearly 200,000
homes for a year. More than 300 new skilled labor manufacturing
jobs, in addition to hundreds of construction jobs, stimulate the local
economy. By reusing an existing building, thousands of tons of
valuable building components were reused, providing a significant
savings of natural resources and energy that would be used to make them
into building materials. As a Brownfield reclamation, the project has
been recognized as an environmental success story.
ABOUT GAMESA Gamesa is one of the biggest
manufacturers and suppliers of technologically advanced products,
installations and services in the renewable energy sector. Gamesa
generates electric energy of renewable origin, essentially based on the
promotion and running of wind farms, the manufacture of wind turbines
and the providing of advanced services to the renewable energy
sector.
ABOUT BURNS Burns is a leading Engineering and Construction Management firm headquartered in Philadelphia, PA.
www.burns-group.com.
Notable Engineering
Achievement
Marcus Foster Athletic Super Site for the Philadelphia School District, Philadelphia, PA
The Louis Berger Group, Inc.
The Louis Berger Group, Inc. was the prime of a multi-disciplined
team of consultants who were selected by the Philadelphia School
District (PSD) to perform design and construction services for the
rehabilitation of four (4) high school athletic fields in the City of
Philadelphia. The PSD concentrated their limited resources into
creating high quality sports complexes in regional City locations to be
shared with a number of City schools. The Marcus Foster Athletic Super
Site was presented to PSPE as the featured site because of the extent
of rehabilitation and because of its complexity. The Louis Berger Group
was responsible for compiling, coordinating, and managing the
consultant team on behalf of the Philadelphia School Improvement Team
(PSIT) tasked to oversee the program.
The design approach
was to focus on low maintenance, high quality solutions which assure
the site's continued use with minimal grounds keeping involvement. To
accomplish this goal, the Marcus Foster project incorporated many new
and innovative technologies in the design. The project included new
synthetic grass turf football/soccer fields employing the latest
generation turf technology, and new football goal posts, soccer goals,
field hockey goals, inlaid multi-sport field striping, as well as a new
public address system, and multi-sport wireless scoreboard.
Since the installation of the site, the Philadelphia School District
has used the Marcus Foster facility to showcase to the community the
District's commitment to invest in student education. The project has
provided the school district with greater publicity and has helped
strengthen the relationship with the community. The Philadelphia School
District is very satisfied with the results of this facility which will
provide added value to school athletics and Philadelphia's educational
system for years to come.
Honorable Mention
Keystone Corridor Improvement Program, Eastern Pennsylvania
Urban Engineers, Inc.
With the excitement surrounding the inaugural run of the new
Keystone Express Service on October 30, 2006, the PENNDOT - Amtrak
Partnership and the public celebrated the completion of the Keystone
Corridor Improvement Program (KCIP). The program re-introduced reliable
electric traction locomotives with cab car duplication of drive
controls. This allows for "push-pull" operation in and out of the end
stop stations, which shortens the turnaround time by avoiding the
uncoupling of the motors. Amtrak was therefore able to add four weekday
round-trips without increasing the fleet size. Train speeds now reach
110 miles per hour on the straight sections.
The $145.5 million KCIP Program has been invested primarily in track
improvements, followed by upgrades of bridges, electric traction
circuit breakers, new signal power supply, and state-of-the-art
operation of new track switches. Keystone Corridor trains are getting
longer, and the trip times are getting shorter. The new electric
traction Express Trains run up to 110 mph and are scheduled to cover
the 104 mile distance from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia to
Harrisburg in 90 minutes. Another benefit of this improvement effort is
that it has created the momentum needed to complete the rejuvenation:
Grade crossing eliminations, new transformers, and new commuter tracks
will add system reliability and ride comfort for thousands of daily
rail commuters using the SEPTA R5 and R6 services.
