Nat's paper, "Numerical Evaluation of Adaptive Base-Isolated Structures Subjected to Earthquake Ground Motion" is scheduled to be published as the leading paper in the February 2005 issue of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics (ASCE).
The Journal of Engineering Mechanics is one of the leading technical journals in the industry. They have one of the highest reputations within the engineering community. Having a paper published by this journal is very difficult. Being the leading paper is a big honor.
Congratulations Nat!
Colin Gordon & Associates Stays Involved with Professional Publications
- 11/20/04
Recent Papers by CGA Consultants • Michael Gendreau presented a paper “Noise in Cleanrooms Served by Fan-Filter Units: Design Considerations,” at the 11th International Congress on Sound and Vibration in St. Petersburg, Russia, in July 2004. This paper deals with the noise aspects of air moving equipment rapidly growing in popularity, and is on our website. • Michael also presented a paper (co-authored by Hal Amick) “Maturation of the Vibration Environment in Advanced Technology Facilities,” at ESTECH 2004, the 50th Annual Technical Meeting of the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST) in Las Vegas, in April. The paper deals with an important issue, the change over time of the vibration environment in a fab, and is also on the website. • Hal gave a presentation (co-authored by Michael Gendreau and Prof. Al Chasey of ASU) at the First Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness, sponsored by the International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI), held in Austin on October 26-27. The topic was the need to optimize the costs of environmental protection (such as vibration isolation) looking at both tool cost and facility cost. • Hal has also had two conference papers on his research at Berkeley involving damped concrete. The first was “Vibration Control Using Large Pneumatic Isolation Systems with Damped Concrete Inertia Masses,” (with Prof. Paulo Monteiro of UC Berkeley), presented at the 7th International Conference on Motion and Vibration Control (MoViC 04), August 8-11, at Washington University, St. Louis, MO. The second, “Damping Properties of Polymer-Modified Concrete,” was presented at the 75th Shock and Vibration Symposium, October 17-22, in Virginia Beach, VA, at a session devoted to damping. These papers will appear on this website soon, and several more will follow.
Hal Amick has represented the firm on two industry groups, International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), in Working Group 17 (Factories), and Working Group 12 of the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST), which produces RP-CC012, “Considerations in Cleanroom Design,” the “home” of the VC vibration criteria. A revision to RP-12 is in preparation, and is scheduled for publication in 2005. It will have some important changes to the familiar VC curves.
Generation 7 Flat Panel Fab Work
- 1/30/04
Flat panel display facilities are quite different from conventional fabs with regard to their size, building concepts, and dynamic loading. The vast majority of the processes in these fabs are handled by robots, and because the product is much larger than conventional semiconductor wafers, the robots and materials handling systems are HUGE. The primary dynamic loads are from the material handling systems, and these change with each generation. It has been an interesting challenge to stay ahead of the design curve.
Colin Gordon & Associates has been quite involved with the design worldwide of fabs for manufacture of flat panel displays (TFT-LCD). The conultants have been involved with every generation between Generation 4 and Generation 7, and had worked on a dozen of these facilities by the start of 2004.
R&D Magazine Award - Genetech Hall
- 1/30/04
The half-million square foot, multi-story building will be used for biotechnology research, and was partially funded through a donation from Genentech. SmithGroup is the architect, and CG&A has served as vibration consultant for this project throughout design and construction, and continues to be involved with other aspects of vibration and noise consulting for the Mission Bay Campus.
Genentech Hall, the first building to be built at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) Mission Bay Campus has been awarded Special Mention in the R&D Magazine "Lab of the Year" design competition.
Completion of AML
- 1/30/04
HDR is the design architect, and Hal Amick has been involved with the project since its inception in 1992, first at Acentech and then at CG&A since 1997. Other CG&A consultants have been involved in various aspects during the construction phase. The facility consists of five buildings and a total of over half a million square feet. Two of the buildings are for metrology research, and are located below grade for reasons related to vibration and temperature control. Two wings for instrumentation research are located above grade, and the cleanroom wing for nanotechnology research is built along the lines of an industrial fab, with subfab space and a waffle slab floor. NIST states that the facility "will be one of the most technologically advanced buildings in the world. No existing laboratory combines the features of close temperature control, vibration isolation, air cleanliness, and power quality into a facility of this magnitude or importance." The project website is at www.aml.nist.gov.
The end of January 2004 marks the completion of building construction on the Advanced Measurement Laboratory (AML) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Hookup is underway.
Update on CG&A Nanotechnology Work
- 1/30/04
The "nano team" continues its involvement with nanotechnology facilities, and recently started its twelfth dedicated facility. The first one, Duffied Hall at Cornell, is essentially complete. You can visit its website at http://www.duffield.cornell.edu.
Presentation at International Conference Held at Berkeley
- 1/30/04
Micahel Gendreau and Hal Amick presented two papers at the 11th International Conference on Soil Dynamics & Earthquake Engineering (11th ICSDEE) and the 3rd International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering (3rd ICEGE), 7-9 January, Berkeley, CA.