I remember my first day of work as a young engineer like it was yesterday. The firm where I was starting my career was ceremoniously ditching the teletype machine that had provided them with computing power from a timeshared computer in a remote office building, in downtown Charlotte, NC, in favor of a desktop computer – a Wang SVP. …
This article is a two part series which discusses special inspection provisions for wood construction in the 2015 International Building Code (Part 1) and perspectives from several States (based on the 2012 International Building Code) on suggested handling of special inspections regionally (Part 2). …
Part 1 of this article was published in the December issue of STRUCTURE magazine.
A total of 75 men were killed instantly, with 11 escaping with their lives, in the bridge collapse on August 29, 1907. How could this have happened? Weren’t Cooper and the Phoenix Bridge Company acknowledged to be leaders in the bridge building business? The Engineering News wrote: …
Technologies for 3D printing, or more broadly additive manufacturing, have proliferated in recent years, and have captured the public’s imagination as a revolutionary way to democratize small-scale, customized manufacturing for the DIY community. In the design of buildings and bridges, 3D printing has proven to be a valuable technique for creating intricately detailed scale models in a fraction of the time required by traditional methods. …
Datum Engineers, Inc. was an Outstanding Award Winner for the Malone Cliff View Residence project in the 2015 NCSEA Annual Excellence in Structural Engineering awards program (Category – New Buildings under $10M). …
As discussed previously in this space (The Engineering Way of Thinking: The Idea, STRUCTURE December 2015), engineering is continually evolving as engineers try new tools, develop new designs, and build new or modified artifacts. All of these expand the heuristics that engineers use, but many times lead to failures. Henry Petroski has even argued that engineering advances through failures. …
2016 will mark many key milestones for our profession, and will have many exciting opportunities to shape our future.
As we enter this important time in the history of structural engineering, let’s not forget that our greatest achievements and innovations always come when we work together in teams. Structural engineers often cite inspiration from other fields, such as physics, chemistry, or art, when they develop a novel idea or solution to an important problem. …
A 120-year service life is achievable in buried galvanized structures. Hot-dip galvanizing (HDG) is the process of immersing fabricated steel or iron into a kettle (bath) of molten zinc. While in the kettle, iron in the steel metallurgically reacts with the zinc to form a tightly-bonded alloy coating. Hot-dip galvanizing resists corrosion by providing barrier and cathodic protection, as well as through the development of the zinc patina. These three levels of corrosion protection provide galvanized steel with maintenance-free longevity for decades. …
During site work and, specifically, underpinning work involving existing buildings, it is best practice to perform monitoring of any buildings in the vicinity that may be influenced by the work. This monitoring includes both optically surveying the existing structures for displacement and installing vibration monitors to continuously monitor and record peak particle velocities. …
Although pile caps are an important structural element, they are generally neglected in textbooks on structural design. This article is intended to offer a brief introduction to the new CRSI/DFI (Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute/Deep Foundations Institute) Pile Cap Design Guide referred to henceforth as the Guide. The Guide was authored by Dr. Timothy W. Mays, P.E. with The Citadel. …