Thornton Tomasetti, the international engineering firm, announces that registered architect Richard J. Vivenzio, LEED AP, has joined the firm’s New York office as vice president in the Building Performance Practice.

Engineers Ronald M. Jezerinac, P.E., S.E., and Eric Search, P.E. of Thornton Tomasetti are available as expert commentators on questions regarding engineering of structures for resistance to hurricane forces, how existing structures can be retrofitted to better withstand hurricane forces, and damage assessment.

Four design professionals from Thornton Tomasetti, Inc., the international engineering firm, have been named to Engineering News-Record’s (ENR) Top 20 Under 40 list, which recognizes outstanding contributions of AEC professionals under the age of 40.

The Indiana State Fair Commission is hiring New York-based engineering company Thornton Tomasetti Inc. to investigate Saturday’s deadly stage collapse, officials said Tuesday.

The Indiana State Fair on Tuesday said it has hired an engineering firm to investigate why a stage was toppled by fierce winds Saturday night, killing five people and injuring dozens. The investigation will be run by Scott Nacheman, who heads the Chicago office of Thornton Tomasetti Inc., an international engineering firm that has worked on projects in 42 countries.

While ensuring that waterproofing, vapor, wind loads and other Superdome repair needs were met, a metal-wall panel system with a structural sub-framing clip-attachment system was developed so a single wall panel can be removed from any location without disturbing the adjacent wall panels

The project team built a new steel frame to hold an independent glass wall system around one of Indianapolis’ most recognizable buildings, replacing a surface damaged by storm winds.

Thanks to federal largesse and the Legislature’s only override of a Tim Pawlenty veto, Minnesota now boasts the most aggressive highway bridge repair and replacement program in the nation.

Contradicting the National Transportation Safety Board’s report that blamed too-thin gusset plates for the Aug. 1, 2007, collapse of the Minneapolis Interstate 35W bridge, an independent analysis has concluded that rusted, frozen roller bearings prevented thermal expansion and caused a truss chord to fail, triggering the gusset-plate failure. The analysis by Thornton Tomasetti, New York City, using forensic bridge information modeling, was presented to victims’ families and will be deployed in an anticipated lawsuit

An engineering firm hired by attorneys for victims of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse says the cause of the disaster was not undersized gusset plates but the failure of a nearby beam, a lawyer for the victims said Wednesday. The firm’s findings directly contradict the conclusion reached by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Experts from engineering consultancy Thornton Tomasetti believe that the initiating event wasn’t the fracture of a key gusset plate in the bridge, but the failure of a horizontal beam.

Lawyers for more than 100 bridge collapse victims say the National Transportation Safety Board reached the wrong conclusion about the 35W bridge collapse. A consortium of lawyers hired the international consulting firm Thorton Tomasetti to investigate the collapse. The firm also investigated the collapse of the World Trade Center.

The National Transportation Safety Board got the cause of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse wrong, the lead lawyer for most victims of the disaster asserted. The lawyer, Chris Messerly, said experts from the engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti Inc. told survivors and families of victims Tuesday night that the “initiating event” was not the fracture of a key gusset plate in the Minneapolis bridge, as the safety board concluded, but the failure of a horizontal beam called a chord.

Experts hired by attorneys for victims of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse say the National Transportation Safety Board got the cause of the disaster wrong, their lead attorney said Wednesday.

Bridge engineers and software providers are adapting and customizing building information modeling techniques for everything from new designs to forensics. But an industry-wide standard for such modeling remains to be seen.

In a sign of the intensifying political turmoil surrounding the investigation of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse, Congress will publicly question the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) next month about its investigation, including the agency’s refusal to hold a hearing of its own.

Silverstein Properties, Inc. has released engineering reports reflecting the results of a detailed and comprehensive examination of why the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center stood for as long as they did following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and why they ultimately collapsed.

Engineers who played a critical role in the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero share their experiences and thoughts about the long-term impacts of Sept. 11.