About Us
Linwood E. Howell, P.E. (Senior Engineer)
EDUCATION
- M.S., Engineering, University of Texas at Austin. Structural Engineering.
- B.S., Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Austin. Mechanics & Materials.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Mr. Howell has thirty-one years experience in structural engineering relating primarily to highway projects. Mr. Howell specializes in bridge inspection and has inspected over 20,000 bridges of all types throughout Texas. Mr. Howell has designed over 30 bridges and has done structural designs for drilled shaft retaining walls and highway appurtenances including supports and foundations for overhead signs, traffic signals, and high-mast lighting. As a former TxDOT employee he is familiar with the range of structural design practices, specifications, and procedures for highway projects. Mr. Howell is familiar with and has used, modified, or designed TxDOT standards for bridges, railing, joints, riprap, overhead sign supports, signal and light supports, culverts, and other items. Mr. Howell is familiar with TxDOT bridge design programs such as PSTRS14, BMCOL51, CAP18, and B30 and is familiar with general structural engineering programs such as RISA3D and STAAD. Mr. Howell’s experience includes providing highway contractors with construction engineering services including failure investigations, formwork and shoring design, plate girder erection plans, and field change proposals for corrective actions.
Xiaolin Ling, PhD, P.E. (Senior Engineer)
EDUCATION
- Phd., Engineering, University of Arizona at Tucson, Structural Engineering.
- Mrs. Ling earned a 4.0 grade point average and graduated with highest honors. Course work included Structural Dynamics, Earthquake Engineering, and Finite Element Analysis. Dissertation concerned techniques for extracting information from the dynamic analysis of structural systems.
- M.S., Engineering, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Mechanical Engineering.
- Thesis concerned the design of aircraft landing gear.
- B.S., Engineering, Northwest Polytechnic University at Shanxi-Xi’an. Structural engineering.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Dr. Ling has thirty-one years experience in structural engineering including the analysis and design of aircraft components, the design of steel, concrete, and timber for buildings and bridges, and the analysis of suspension bridge cable systems and components. Dr. Ling has worked on various projects including the design of the central police department building for the City of Austin and the design and load rating of steel and concrete bridges for the Texas Department of Transportation. Dr. Ling has extensive experience in the field of finite element analysis including design projects, programming, and research projects. Dr. Ling is proficient with the ANSYS, RISA-3D, RcBeam, AutoCAD, Microstation, and BAR7 Bridge Analysis and Rating Program.
PUBLISHED PAPERS
Ling, X. and Halder, “Element Level System Identification with Unknown Input with Rayleigh Dumping,” Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE, Vol. 130, Issue 8, August 1, 2004.
Ling, X., Halder, A., and Vo, P. H., “A Novel Time-Domain System Identification Technique,” 2000 Specialty Conference on Probabilistic Mechanics and Structural Reliability, University of Notre Dame, Paper No. PMC 2000-086, July 24-26, 2000.
Vo, P. H, Halder, A., and. Ling, X., “Experimental Verification of a Novel System Identification Technique,” 2000 Specialty Conference on Probabilistic Mechanics and Structural Reliability, University of Notre Dame, Paper No. PMC 2000-087, July 24-26, 2000.
Ling, X., “Linear and Non-Linear Time Domain System Identification at Element Level for Structural Systems with Unknown Excitation,” Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Arizona, 2000.
Halder, A., Ling, X., and Vo, P. H., “Element Level Damage Evaluation Using System Identification,” 8th International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability, ICASP8’99, pp. 1143-1148, December, 1999.
Halder, A., Ling, X., and Wang, D., “Nondestructive Identification of Existing Structures with Unknown Input and Limited Observations,” 7th International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability, ICOSSAR’97, Vol. 1, pp. 363-370, 1998.
Halder, A., Ling, X., and Wang, D., “Use of System Identification for Damage Evaluation at the Element Level,” 1998 Structural Engineers World Congress, San Francisco, California, Paper T216-1, July 18-23, 1998.
Ling, X. and Zhang, Q., “Displacement Synthesis and Collision Prediction of a Spatial Mechanism of an Aircraft Landing Gear with Reorientation Rotary Landing Wheel,” Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing, China, 1982.
Zhang, Q., Zong, G., and Ling, X., “Displacement Analysis of Spatial Seven-Link Mechanisms Using Geometric Equality Conditions in Mechanism Kinematics,” Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing, China, 1980.
Yuan, Y., and Ling, X., “A Finite Element Program for Analysis of Thin Shells Using Matrix Blocking Techniques,” Paper presented at the Chinese National Conference on Finite Element Methods, Banbu, China, 1978.