Sport Stadia, Sporting Events and Urban Development: International Experience and the Ambitions of Durban

The paper considers the stadium construction and infrastructure projects underway for World Cup 2010. We ask whether and under which conditions hosting such an event (along with the new facilities and infrastructural development required) will have positive effects on urban development. By analysing the stadium project in Durban, the paper also presents evidence on whether such positive effects may be enhanced by the attempt to create an image effect by seeking outstanding architectural quality of the new stadia.

Entwurf und Ausführung der Seidewitztalbrücke im Zuge der BAB A 17

Design and construction of the new roadwaybridge across the Seidewitztal on the highway Dresden– Prague. The following article deals with the investigations made for the construction of the 568 m long bridge across the Seidewitztal near Dresden during preliminary design and tender design. The new bridge will be part of the new highway from Dresden to the border of the Czech Republic. Main part of the new bridge will be an arch with a span length of 154 m.     

Europäische Dämmstoffnormen der 2. Generation: Prüfmethoden zur Ermittlung flüchtiger organischer Komponenten (VOC)

2nd generation European Standards for insulating materials and products: test methods for the determination of emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) In October 2001 ten “first generation” standards (EN 13162 through EN 13171) were introduced in Europe dealing with insulating materials and products. The new standards now in effect had to be based on the European Construction Products Directive (CPD) and conceptual details had been mandated by the European Commission to the standardization body CEN. Among other properties like thermal conductivity and fire performance the mandate requested to standardize a so called “initial type test (ITT)” for the release of dangerous substances (also called “regulated substances”) to be performed by an independent testing laboratory on behalf of the manufacturer before placing the product onto the market. However, due to the lack of experience and due to a non‐existing European harmonized common method for testing and classification, this property could not be included in the standards in due time and reference was only made to national regulations. Because of this shortcoming, a research project, started in 2003, developed a cost effective and very practical test method based on the emission cell device with a subunit that proved suitable for an initial type test (ITT) for the determination of emissions from thermal insulation materials and products – in particular volatile organic compounds (VOC).     

Zur Neufassung der DIN 4178 “Glockentürme”

To the introduction of the revised German Code DIN 4178 “Bell towers“. The new German Code DIN 4178 replaces the version validated since 1978 for calculation and design of bell towers under bell ringing forces. It contains further aspects of maintenance and restoration especially of historical buildings and gives indications to measurement of oscillation.     

Motives for acquisitions among engineering consulting firms

Many empirical studies across various industry sectors show a high failure rate of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), suggesting that this instrument of corporate development is rather risky. Since engineering consulting firms usually have a low tangible asset base as well as good educated and highly mobile professionals, carrying out an M&A transaction in this particular service sector creates an even higher risk. It is evident from the relevant construction and engineering literature that a large number of engineering consulting firms engage in M&A for their corporate development. Owing to the uniqueness of that service sector combined with the high failure rate of M&A, a survey among the top 100 engineering consulting firms in Europe was conducted to investigate the motives behind M&A transactions. Findings suggest that diversification into new service/client markets as well as the penetration into new geographic markets were the most important motives. Further, increasing the firm's market share and the acceleration of growth were the next most popularly rated motives, while tax reasons or spending the firm's excess cash were both seen as relatively unimportant motives. The results show that - compared to other industry sectors - engineering consulting firms had some very different motives or another emphasis was placed on those motives when conducting an M&A transaction. Results also show that some motives were just as important for engineering consulting firms as for firms of other industry sectors, for example the increase of market share or the acceleration of firm growth.     

ZF-ECOLIFE-适用于城市公共汽车的、现代化的动力换档变速器

除了内燃机和车桥系统外,道路车辆的传动系统主要由变速器所决定.目前城市公共汽车中主要采用动力换档的自动变速器,特别是因为它们具有舒适性高和操纵便捷的特点.今天变速器系统的新挑战源自于内燃机的改进,特别是受制于排放法规使得内燃机提高转矩和冷却温度.另一方面,车辆的全寿命成本正变得更加重要,并由此带来技术方面的挑战,例如更高的可靠性和更佳的燃油经济性等.将诸如成本、舒适性最优等各种要求合并,形成了相当复杂的需求内容.而且这些需求对车辆制造商和诸如操作人员的最终用户有所不同.因此ZF公司开发新一代动力换档变速器,将长期目标与诸如更广的车辆应用场合、降低全寿命成本、简化使用条件等用户需求相结合.采用QFD(质量功能展开)方法分析后发现,由液力变矩器、行星齿轮机构和初级缓速器组成的动力换档变速器是满足各种不同需求的最佳方案.我们开发的新变速器在设计和制造的各个细节方面均采用了特殊和全新的解决方案.将最新的开发工具和方法应用与概念定义中.最终形成的动力换档变速器是一个6档行星齿轮变速器、带锁止离合器的液力变矩器,并可选装扭转减振器.新的冷却系统有两个热交换器,以提高系统的可靠性和改善城市公共汽车初级缓速器的制动转矩以适应更重的车辆、较高平均速度、长时间性能和舒适性等方面的要求.新型ECU直接安装在变速器上,其电气安装界面做到最小.其结论是,新型动力换档变速器的优势非常突出,因为它们体现了当代和今后动力传动系统应有的高性能,以及更佳的全寿命成本和优越的舒适性;并且在安全性和环保方面都相当出色.最后强调一下,我们将其取名为EcoLife,象征着更高的经济性和生态效益以及寿命.     

Interface growth morphologies in pulsed laser deposited, room temperature grown multilayer hard coatings

The mechanical behaviour - hardness, elasticity, and adhesion - of multilayer coatings is strongly influenced by the type of the formed interfaces between the different layers. In industrially applied tribological coatings the interface region is predominantly not a perfect sudden change of the chemical composition of the adjacent crystal planes, but a transition zone of a thickness, which is strongly dependent on the energetic conditions during deposition. Multilayer coatings grown by high-energetic deposition techniques always struggle with high atomic mixing of both adjacent coating materials due to high energetic ion implantation.One of these high-energetic deposition techniques is the Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD), characterized by pulsed and within one pulse alternating high- and low-energetic particle fractions, hitting successively the substrate surface. Such deposition conditions were shown to be highly advantageous for low temperature deposition by the densification of the growth structures due to activated diffusion and re-sputtering, but increases the difficulty in depositing multilayer structures.The current paper addresses these specific growth conditions based on Ti/TiN and Cr/CrN multilayer coatings. High resolution transmission electron microscopy results show that the atomic mixing at the interface is not highly critical for the deposition of multilayer coatings and that extremely dense growth structures are forming even in the interface regions.