9781422284827

Build (and climb!) amazing structures with...

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Archaeologists! Astronauts! Big-Animal Vets! Biomedical Engineers! Civil Engineers!

Climatologists! Crime Scene Techs! Cyber Spy Hunters! Marine Biologists! Robot Builders!

By John Glenn

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

© 2016 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3416-7 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-3421-1 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-8482-7

First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Produced by Shoreline Publishing Group LLC Santa Barbara, California Editorial Director: James Buckley Jr. Designer: Tom Carling, Carling Design Inc. Production: Sandy Gordon www.shorelinepublishing.com

Cover image: Kali9/Getty Images

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.

Contents

Action!. .................................................................... 6 The Scientists and Their Science....................... 12 Tools of the Trade................................................. 22 Tales From the Field!. .......................................... 32 Scientists in the News......................................... 44

Find Out More..................................................................... 46

Series Glossary of Key Terms............................................ 47

Index/About the Author.................................................... 48

Key Icons to Look For

Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowl- edge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weav- ing together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connect- ed to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis.

Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here.

Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains ter- minology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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Action!

n 2013, there was a monster deep under the city of Seattle—a monster machine, that is. The machine was chewing through the rocks, boulders, and soil 60 to 120 feet (18 to 36 m) beneath the surface. Like a gigantic earthworm, it crunched through 50 feet of rock and soil a day, turning enormous boulders into rubble with ease. Nicknamed “Bertha” after Seattle’s first female mayor, it is the world’s largest tunnel-boring machine, or TBM. It stands five stories tall and is responsible for creating a two-mile (3.2-km) tunnel that will forever change Seattle’s landscape. In December 2013, something went terribly wrong. After crunch- ing through 1,019 feet of rock and dirt, Bertha stopped tunneling.

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND diagnose  identify an illness in a person, or find a problem with something by examining it excavating  digging out

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Project manager Chris Dixon and the other civil engineers working on the tunnel had a big problem on their hands. Bertha was overheating, and they didn’t know why. Dixon was aware that the tunnel borer hit a pipe a few days before. Was it possible that a tiny pipe was capable of halting a 6,700-ton boulder crusher like Bertha? The crew pulled a 55-foot (16.7 m) portion of a pipe out of the ground and away from Bertha’s jaws. They also climbed into the ma- chine and removed pipe fragments.The machine still was not working right. Dixon was puzzled, but he was confident that he and his team could figure it out and get Bertha moving again. They had to diagnose the problem so they could fix it and prevent it from happening again. How do you diagnose a problemwhen all of the clues are underground and covered in dirt and grime? Dixon revved up the machine’s motors in an effort to dislodge whatever was keeping it frommoving forward, but the machine over- heated and mud flowed in. He sent crews into the belly of the machine to clear away the dirt trapped inside. Bertha was still overheating. Finally, workers thought they’d found the cause of the extreme heat. Internal seals that kept out dirt must have been damaged when Ber- tha ate through the steel pipe. After all, the TBM was built to break up rock and loosen debris. It was not built to chew through steel. “These things do happen on tunnel projects,” said Dixon. “We’re really testing the limits for tunnel-boring machines.” He had to figure out how to fix Bertha, knowing that, as he said, the repairs presented “a significant engineering challenge that must be done safely.” Dixon grew up surrounded by construction. His family built things, and so does he. At 16, he got his first job working as a tunnel miner in Australia. He has spent most of his career working on tunnel projects

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in the United States and around the world. His many years of experi- ence deep in tunnels around the world helped to prepare him for his toughest tunneling job yet: the Seattle tunnel. Dixon knew the TBM’s cutter head needed major repairs. Locat- ed on the front of the machine, the cutter head is covered with steel teeth and spinning blades. Buried deep inside the tunnel, however, the cutter head was awfully hard to access. That far underground, the pressure is enormous, and the area in front of the machine was often filled with water. For workers to make repairs, they’d need to wear special breathing equipment, like scuba divers do. It would be time-consuming and dangerous work. Dixon and his team needed to find a better way to repair the machine.

Engineers depend on the many, sharp, metal teeth of tunnel-boring machines like this one to turn their underground designs into reality.

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This is the emergency tunnel dug by Seattle engineers to reach the tunnel-boring machine that needed repairs. Once that was done, Bertha the tunnel-borer soon was hard at work!

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What do you do when you have big trouble deep in a tunnel? You dig some more! After exploring several possible options, Dixon and the other engineers decided to dig an enormous rescue hole. It would be 120 feet (36 m) deep and lined with concrete. The edge of the hole would be about 20 feet (6.1 m) from where Bertha rested. After excavating the hole, engineers would slowly move the TBM forward until it broke through the concrete wall. Once the cutter head was exposed, workers could detach it and haul it to the surface us- ing a massive lift tower. Pulling the front section of the machine out of the ground would be no easy task. It weighed nearly 2,000 tons! Laid on the ground, the front pieces of the machine would be 30 feet (10 m) tall. Dixon knew that working above the ground would be far easier than working in the muck at the bottom of a pit.Workers would replace the seals and repair the damaged teeth and cutting blades. The crew would then lower the cutter head back into the rescue shaft and reattach it. It took many days of work by dozens of experts, but the massive repair job was done. Dixon cranked up the power, and Bertha got back in action. The run-in with the steel pipe may not be the last setback for the tunnel. Dixon, like any other successful civil engineer, is pre- pared to find solutions to each new problem that arises—whether that problem is on the surface or far beneath our feet.

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WORDS TO UNDERSTAND adrenaline  a substance released into the body when it feels a strong emotion such as excite- ment or fear; it causes the heart to beat faster and provides an energy boost contamination  making something dirty, unusable, or polluted by adding something bad or harmful to it geotechnical a branch of engineering that deals with earth and related materials infrastructure  the facilities and systems—such as roads, bridges, water and power, and schools—that a country, city, or area need in order to function specialty  an area of study that a person focuses on or is an expert in

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The Scientists and Their Science 1

hen you think of civil engineering, think big. Think bridges, dams, tunnels, airports, highways, roads, water systems, man- made islands, and other infrastructure projects. Civil engi- neers design, construct, and maintain these structures. That’s not all. Every time you drink water from the tap or flush the toilet, you also have civil engineers to thank. They design and create sys- tems that protect and move our water supply and treat sewage. They build enormous dams (such as the Hoover Dam in Nevada, pictured at left). The next time you’re at a Major League Baseball game, give a cheer for the civil engineers who built the stadium. Civil engineers also build public buildings, such as arts centers, libraries, police stations, and more.

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Up High? Or Down Low? t the beginning of their studies, budding civil engineers will learn a lot about different structures. However, the person who plans a new freeway ramp is probably not the same one designing a new opera house. A new engineer will choose an engineering specialty , such as structural, environmental, water, transportation, geotechnical , or construction. Have you ever wondered how an underwater tunnel was made? Are you fascinated by skyscrapers? Do you like to build things? Then structural engineering might be the path for you. Structural engineers design and construct major projects. They know about the materials used to build things, and how those materials react to different forces, such as gravity, wind, or waves. They also know what kinds of extreme conditions might affect a building. If a building is in an earthquake zone, it needs to be able to withstand some serious shaking. Structures in hurricane-prone areas need to sway a little—but not too much—in super strong winds. Environmental engineers work to clean up or prevent contamina- tion of the air, soil, and water. How will a dam affect the animals and plants that live nearby? Does a bridge pollute the river around it? Is there a way to decrease the amount of water or electricity a building uses? Those are the sorts of questions an environmental engineer might ask. Elizabeth Marsh became an environmental engineer because she wanted to make a difference. Some of her proudest moments have occurred when she was part of an oil spill response team. “The team- work and adrenaline are amazing,” she said. “Long hours are rewarded

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