Magazine

Shear walls are walls specifically designed to resist lateral loads, transferring the load from the wall above to the wall below and, ultimately, out through the foundation. This is a critical role in a building’s structural frame, as walls that do not properly manage lateral loads can experience racking, base shear and overturning. The Importance…

The right window film can improve the look of your facility, but more importantly, it can also protect occupants from outsider threats that are especially problematic to schools and retail stores, such as active shooters, civil unrest, and natural disasters, which are becoming more frequent over time. Jamie Hamilton, Senior Building Security, Energy, and Branding…

Physical attacks — be they against businesses, banks, critical energy infrastructure, or places of worship — continue to tragically dominate the news cycle. Business continuity plans (BCPs) have now become commonplace for institutions that once never expected to need them. BCPs are designed to enhance responses to various crises, including natural disasters, technological failures, industrial…

Generator insights When designing or assessing campus-style distribution systems, it is important to focus on centralized versus decentralized standby power systems. Decentralized standby generators offer electrical and geographic diversity to prevent single points of failure and can be less expensive due to localized and right-sized electrical distribution. Centralized standby generators offer shared capacity and N+1…

An existing hospital campus is undergoing a master planning effort to determine strategies for growth and infrastructure improvements. The campus is currently fed from two utility sources, Circuit A and Circuit B at 13.8 kilovolts (kV). The two sources serve 15-kV switchgear that distributes power throughout the campus through underground duct banks with taps made…

Inflation continues to moderate in multiple regions and countries but remains high, and central banks look set to maintain a path of interest rate interventions. However, interest rates and sentiment are weighing on growth projections and the picture is somewhat patchy, with growth in some emerging economies such as China and India outpacing developed economies….