Friday, 11 Jul 2008

The Great Storm of 1703

Looking into disaster scenarios and doing actuarial and engineering forecasts of potential impacts, I came across a fascinating paper about the impact of “The Great Storm of 1703“¹ on southern England and the Channel coast. Obviously this predates modern meteorology, so what makes it interesting is how they modeled what the wind forces likely were.

Given that there is every likelihood that such conditions can arise again, the forecast of the economic impact (specifically, claims in excess of available reinsurance) means such and event would likely have a catastrophic effect on the financial system if it had already been weakened by other difficulties — kind of like as it is at present.

AfC

¹ A 7 page retrospective published in .pdf form by a firm named Risk Management Solutions at their website. The fate of the Eddystone Lighthouse, pictured above, is also interesting.

great-storm-of-1703, posted by Andrew Cowie in engineering/background at 2008-07-11T08:06:51Z

Wednesday, 19 Dec 2007

On Bridges

Doing some background research for a client I came across a surprisingly comprehensive introductory page about the basics of bridge design. This isn’t Civ Eng stuff by any means, but it’s a great overview of the taxonomy of bridges, with some excellent illustrations:

along with admirably concise descriptions.

The source website is an exhaustive survey of bridges in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, maintained by one Bruce Cridlebaugh. Though I am sometimes moved to wonder what drives people to such exhaustive efforts, it’s not like people I hang around with aren’t equally obsessed over obscure interests. :)

As websites go, it’s actually surprisingly well laid out. The intro page has a graphic explaining to visitors how to use their site:

“…To choose from a comprehensive listing of structures, (1) go to List by Location, (2) choose a map area, then (3) select from the list for structures in that area…”

Granted, enthusiasm to use this technique oneself is tempered by the obvious hassle of having to create such a graphic in the first place (not to mention that screenshots have a bad habit of getting out of date the moment you alter your stylesheets), but it is nonetheless impressive information density.

AfC

bridge-basics, posted by Andrew Cowie in engineering/background at 2007-12-18T13:08:10Z

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