Wolf Creek Pass Projects

CDOT celebrated in November the completion of two significant project phases on U.S. Highway 160 through Wolf Creek Pass.

Strategic Wolf Creek Pass Projects Finished

CDOT celebrated in November the completion of two significant project phases on U.S. Highway 160 through Wolf Creek Pass.

The completed projects are the new 916-ft Wolf Creek Pass Tunnel and Lonesome Dove to Windy Point safety improvement projects, both east of the summit.

The U.S. 160 Wolf Creek Pass corridor is one of Colorado's 28 Strategic Transportation Projects that has benefited from TRANS - Transportation Revenue Anticipation Notes - bonding for accelerated completion.

CU-Boulder Opens Earthquake Facility

The University of Colorado at Boulder launched a novel Fast Hybrid Test facility for earthquake engineering in November as part of a national effort to improve the engineering of buildings, bridges, transportation systems and other structures to withstand severe earthquakes.

The CU-Boulder laboratory is part of the $81.8 million George E. Brown Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The network links 15 major earthquake-testing installations at universities around the country.

The FHT System - developed over the last four years at CU-Boulder - integrates physical testing with model-based simulation to achieve the most realistic and efficient evaluation of the response of large-scale structural systems to actual earthquake forces, said senior research scientist Eric Stauffer.

The system dramatically improves on conventional pseudo-dynamic tests by increasing the rate of forces applied to the structure and in many cases matches that of a real earthquake, he said.

Housed in the Engineering Center's 2,800-sq-ft, high-bay civil engineering structures laboratory, the FHT System includes three high-speed hydraulic actuators capable of applying up to 100 tons of force both horizontally and vertically on a structure.

The actuators move continuously to apply simulated earthquake forces to a test structure based on precise numerical computations, while the system simulates the response of the remaining structural components in a computer. In this way, physical and model testing and analysis are combined in real time.

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