Kirjahaku

This special issue of the highly respected Civil Engineering journal from the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers looks to study and learn from the catastrophes, collapses and failures that fascinate and horrify the civil engineering community.

Winning and delivering the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is set to become one of the UK's most compelling stories of the early twenty-first century. In just 7 years a talented team of civil engineers and other professionals will have transformed one of the most derelict and neglected sites in Europe into a spectacular theatre for the world's largest sporting event – and laid the foundations for a dramatic regeneration of a large swathe of east London. The delivery of London 2012 is a great opportunity to promote the civil engineering profession worldwide. The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has therefore been working with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) to put together a series of special and themed issues of ICE Proceedings journals to record as much of the processes and lessons learned as possible, of which this is the first. The aim is to showcase the engineering and planning feats associated with embedding sustainability into such a large project and to ensure lessons can be learned and acted upon by the whole built-environment community. The papers in this special issue of Civil Engineering cover the early ‘planning and people’ stages of the project, from organisation and planning, through environmental and sustainability management, to procurement, employment, safety and transport. A special issue of Civil Engineering on the design and construction of the venues and infrastructure is currently in preparation, and a third issue examining the legacy of the games is planned for the not-too-distant future.

This special issue of Civil Engineering includes nine papers exploring aspects of research and practice. Topics covered include the development of a new composite flooring system installed in the iconic Leadenhall building in central London, UK, the use of timber in civil engineering, geogrids for transport as well as the funding of research by the UK's Ministry of Defence. The issue also includes designing for blind and partially sighted people and 'wearable simulations' which allow the wearer to experience the symptoms of various occupational illnesses as experimential health and safety training.

This special issue of the Civil Engineering journal is on the hugely challenging project to electrify the Great Western railway between London and south Wales in the UK. Completed in January 2020, the GBP3 billion programme of works involved threading overhead line equipment along 650 km of live railway tracks and through dozens of historic bridges and tunnels. The seven papers in this issue describe the many challenges and lessons learned on the first major electrification scheme in the UK for a generation.

This special issue of Civil Engineering is a showcase of research and case studies on what civil engineers can do to address climate-change risks, the challenges of assessing whole-life climate impacts and risks, and a look at new design approaches that enable projects to be both more sustainable and more resilient.

This special issue of Civil Engineering is dedicated to innovative civil engineering projects in India. It highlights how the world’s sixth largest economy is investing heavily in national and local infrastructure to meet its ever-growing social and economic needs while also considering the wider issues of sustainability.

Special issue on how the COVID pandemic has reshaped the landscape of the construction industry, whilst forcing a resetting of our thinking on how future infrastructure demands will need to be met.