bridge engineering morrison maierle

Toston Structures The Toston Structures consist of a 661-foot-long highway bridge—and an adjacent 350-foot-long railroad bridge—over the Missouri River in Montana between Townsend and Three Forks. The structures have intermediate river piers, steel beams and cross frames, and nearly 7,000 square feet of concrete decks between them. Our services included: Highway design Bridge engineering Survey Natural resources Two Corridors, Two Possibilities The 75-year-old structures were at the end of their design lives. They also had a treacherous curve with no shoulders, and inspections showed cracking in some critical areas. In 2011, the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) completed a simulation on the US-287 corridor crossingsRead More →

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welding procedure specifications

Four Types of Welding Procedure Specifications (WPS) By Ken Fields, CET, CWI – Welding Procedure Specifications (WPS) are the parameters and variables a welder must follow to consistently produce sound welds. In the profession, WPS can also go by the names of Preliminary WPS, prequalified WPS, Standard WPS, or simply a WPS. In the end, Welding Procedure Specifications are simply Welding Procedure Specifications. Below is a brief description of the four types of specifications and how they come into play when developing the end product—otherwise known as a qualified WPS—after all the required testing has been completed. 1. Preliminary-WPS A Preliminary-WPS is written by theRead More →

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AIH Montana state university

American Indian Hall Receives Best in Show Honors Montana State University’s American Indian Hall project recently received two prestigious awards from the Structural Insulated Panel Association (SIPA) Builder Excellence Award program. Working with Big Sky Insulations, the AIH project received awards for Best in Show (top overall award) and Best Commercial Structure over 10,000 sq. ft. The criteria included overall design, design creativity, energy performance, and overall impact. The project has been in the works since 2004 when MSU Alumni, Dennis Sun Rhodes and Jim Dolan, presented President Geoffrey Gamble with their idea to build an American Indian Hall on campus to support MSU’s growing populationRead More →

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bridge competition

Students Participate in Balsa Wood Bridge Contest It may be the lightest and softest member of the hardwood family, but balsa wood (along with roughly 30 students and two teachers from Capital High and Helena High) was the material of the moment at Morrison-Maierle’s first Balsa Wood Bridge Contest. Led by Russ Lay, a bridge engineer in our Helena office, the contest required students to design and construct bridges using only the featherweight balsa wood and glue. The students, some who worked in teams and others who worked individually, created miniature bridges that were tested and ranked based on their strength-to-weight ratio. Having competed inRead More →

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vigilante stadium project

Vigilante Stadium Lighting Design Helena Public Schools’ Vigilante Stadium is in Helena’s South-Central neighborhood and home field to both Helena High and Capital High schools. In the fall during football season, it is busy nearly every Friday night as both schools take turns hosting home games and again throughout the spring for middle and high school track meets. The Problem The stadium, with its 1970-era HID lighting system, regularly sent the district’s maintenance staff scrambling for replacement parts that were extremely difficult to find and, in most cases, obsolete. Most of the poles had at least one fixture that did not function, and the lightingRead More →

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mass timber office building

Mass Timber Group Features Supervisor’s Office Project WoodWorks, a non-profit organization that provides education and free technical support related to the design, engineering, and construction of commercial and multi-family wood buildings in the U.S., released a new case story on our Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests Supervisor’s Office mass timber project. Working for our clients, the U.S. Forest Service, Morrison-Maierle’s team of structural engineers, Mosaic Architecture, and Quality Contractors, used mass timber materials supplied by RedBuilt, SmartLam North America, and QB Corporation to design and construct this two-story, 16,000 sq. ft. facility in Kamiah, Idaho. The building consolidates the former five locations into three communities andRead More →

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bend structural engineering mass timber clt

Seven Benefits of Panelized Mass Timber By Reed Newcomer, PE – Mass timber has become increasingly popular in the building industry in recent years and has placed exposed wood construction into the limelight. Given its many benefits, it is understandable why mass timber has gained popularity. Aside from being aesthetically pleasing, research has shown that mass timber buildings can provide occupants with both physical and psychological benefits. The characteristic properties of wood and proportioning of mass timber panels also provide numerous advantages to building owners that are deeper than just architectural appeal. While there are many other reasons to consider mass timber for your nextRead More →

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american indian hall montana state university

American Indian Hall Morrison-Maierle worked with ThinkOne, a local Bozeman architect, to perform the structural design and site civil design for this unique building located on the Malone Centennial Mall at MSU. This $20M, 31,000 sq. ft. building was funded through donor gifts. It is the first in Montana to obtain LEED Platinum v4 status (video below), earning all three points in the structural materials category plus one additional point for exemplary structural performance. The building system is a combination of wood and steel, and there were several unique architectural features including a curved monumental staircase, curved canopies, a drum room, and a 140 ft.Read More →

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american indian hall montana state university

American Indian Hall Opens on MSU Campus A grand opening for the American Indian Hall at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, was held on October 16, 2021. Nearly 1,200 were on hand to celebrate this achievement, including Morrison-Maierle’s structural design team of Nate Menuez, Rebecca Scheetz, Austin Batson, and MaKayla Beckman, and the site civil designers Mike Hickman and Cody Farley. The ceremony had a full agenda that included traditional songs, prayers, dances, and drumming. Speakers included MSU President Waded Cruzado, MSU President Emeritus Geoffrey Gamble, head of the MSU Department of Native American Studies Walter Fleming, U.S. Senator Jon Tester, and the U.S.Read More →

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bridge design

MDT MT-81 Bridges The Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) hired Morrison-Maierle and Frontier West to replace three bridges along Montana Highway 81 (MT-81) between Fort Benton and Lewistown. The original structures were constructed in 1934 and 1948 and had begun to deteriorate. The two 1934 structures were multiple span timber bridges and the 1948 Judith River bridge was a multiple span steel girder structure with piers in the river. The Judith River Bridge was considered the most significant scour risk in Montana and susceptible to catastrophic failure. The new structures were designed and replaced with one phased concrete box culvert, one phased single span bulb-teeRead More →

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bozeman-airport-parking-garage-morrison-maierle-engineering-designers

Bozeman Airport Parking Garage With Big Sky Resort, Yellowstone National Park, Bridger Bowl ski area, andother attractions just down the road, the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN) sees a significant number of travelers. The airport had been seeing consistent passenger growth of approximately 9% each year for the previous five years and has had a record of over 1.5 million visitors in one year. The airport identified several projects to accommodate this growth, with vehicular traffic being one of the most critical. As rental car companies are one of the lead revenue-generating enterprises at the BZN, the airport determined that it needed a new parkingRead More →

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Missoula Buildings Group Volunteers on Park Upgrade Project Thanks goes out to several members of our Missoula Buildings Market Group – electrical, mechanical, structural engineers and CAD designers for their volunteer efforts upgrading Missoula’s Dragon’s Hollow Play area.  Located downtown next to A Carousel for Missoula, the play area is an all-abilities playground that was in need of some upgrades. Our team, who are very familiar with building upgrades of all kinds, showed up on a very rainy Saturday to help with the effort. Thanks goes out to all, especially Ross Balfour, who coordinated the effort and recruited volunteers.Read More →

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REC-morrison-maierle

Ravalli Electric Co-Op The Ravalli Electric Co-Op is a nonprofit electrical utility provider in Ravalli County, MT. Serving over 10,000 members, giving back to the community and sustainable operations are two of the Co-Op’s main goals. Keeping these two priorities in mind, Morrison-Maierle provided energy-efficient and sustainable mechanical, electrical, and structural engineering designs for the Co-op’s new multi-building workplace.  Structural Design  The Challenge: With 19,400 square feet of office space and 30,950 square feet of warehouse and garage parking space, this project needed a variety of structures included in this multi-building complex. Structures include office space, staffing training rooms, large vehicle storage, wash bays, and dry storageRead More →

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