Recently, an insurance adjuster engaged one of the authors to help determine the replacement cost for vehicle damage to a residential garage. The residence is constructed on a hillside, on the downslope side of the roadway. The house is typical of many at such locations; the garage and public living spaces are at the uppermost/street level and private spaces like bedrooms are located in the story below. …
One of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries of our time lies in a courtyard outside of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It’s a sculpture called Kryptos, and although it’s been partially solved, it contains an inscription that has puzzled the most renowned cryptanalysts since being erected in 1990. Meanwhile, in another part of the DC Beltway about 15 miles to the southeast, another great mystery is being deciphered at the American and Iron Institute (AISI) headquarters. …
The process of (abductively) creating a diagrammatic representation of a problem and its proposed solution, and then (deductively) working out the necessary consequences, such that this serves as an adequate substitute for (inductively) evaluating the actual situation. …
DeSimone Consulting Engineers was an Outstanding Award Winner for the Grove at Grand Bay project in the 2015 NCSEA Annual Excellence in Structural Engineering Awards program (Category – New Buildings over $100M).
Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), Grove at Grand Bay, the first truly twisting buildings in the United States, will be an iconic residential project located at the former site of the Grand Bay Hotel in Miami. …
The concept of Structural Resilience has recently become a hot topic within the structural engineering community. With the establishment of the U.S. Resiliency Council (USRC), structural engineers may have found their version of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Perhaps, with time, USRC ratings will have significance in the same way Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) ratings have some significance for buildings. …
I hope you are planning to attend the 2016 NCSEA Structural Engineering Summit. I think it is going to be great this year, and I know it will be our highest attendance ever! The dates are September 14 thru 17 at Disney’s Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. …
The intent of this 3-part series is to expand the engineer’s understanding of the realities and opportunities in fatigue and fracture design. After reading this segment, the reader may have more questions than answers. This is not because the reader will not learn anything, but because they will better know the questions they should be asking. …
In the engineering and construction industry, any truss spanning more than 60 feet is considered to be “long span”, thus requiring engineering consideration (per International Building Code (IBC) 2015 Section 2303.4, “Trusses” [for design of]). The purpose of this article is first to explore and explain various aspects of building with long-span, open-web trusses, including manufacturing, architectural design options, engineering considerations, and installation practices and, second to provide examples of structures where long-span, open-web trusses are featured (Figure 1). …
Saint Venant established his theory of torsion (1853) by assuming axially invariant modes of tangential and axial (warping) displacements. In conjunction with known static boundary conditions, the equations of elasticity were satisfied leading to an exact solution for pure torsion. His theory assumes free warping displacement and, when this is restrained, the torsional stiffness is increased depending on the cross-sectional shape. …
When starting something new, it is a good idea to start small, work out the kinks and make the inevitable mistakes on a small scale before expanding a product or a process. Businesses do not start off as Fortune 100 companies. Musicians do not purchase Stradivarius violins or P. Mauriat saxophones before they spend hours of practice honing their skill. Churches begin meeting in school gymnasiums before breaking ground on their first small building, with hopes to expand as their memberships grow. …