Recent content by jgeng

Lets say an architect prepared a complete set of house plans and did not use an engineer. The contractor has now requested from you as an engineer to provide an alternate foundation construction detail. Is there any reason why you shouldn't do this? My concern is that the architect is the...

I meant make a splice/repair that has equal or greater flexural and axial capacity as the a pile in good condition.

Everything is in place and it is a building structure on the pilings. The pilings extend through to second floor of structure

Its freshwater. Don't know the cause of the split, possibly damaged by driving. When you say replacement do you mean the whole pile? This would be very costly for constructibility reasons. Or did you mean splice in with solid material? That is where I was leaning. I was thinking a notched splice...

I am looking for repair options for split timber piles. Although wood is new and generally good condition, some of these piles are severly split with material missing. Most of the splitting occurs above the water line but some is below. The repair must strengthen the pile's axial capacity and...

I am looking for repair options for split timber piles. Although wood is new and generally good condition, some of these piles are severly split with material missing. Most of the splitting occurs above the water line but some is below. The repair must strengthen the pile's axial capacity and...

I want to see if I could use a large U-bolt to attach some diagonal bracing to a timber pile to reduce cost of underwater construction. The diagonal brace could deliver both tension and compressive forces. The way I see it the horizontal componenet of the tension or compression force will result...

These piles were likely jetted in, what effect would that have on the capacity?

I am not a geotech...I need a ball park figure for the capacity of an 8" tip timber pile driven below water into fine sand 6ft. The first 2 ft was reported to be dense fine sand with N=40. After that it is medium dense fine sand with silt with N=20. What would be a resonable bearing capacity...

I sometimes do residential structural engineering work and have recently got into discussion with this contractor regarding design fee. Some of the time the jobs I work on our small enough where I am the only professional involved preparing the plans (i.e. no architect). I told him I thought...

I meant a standard spacing that is good for the average shear flow

That's at the ends (max shear). So my number sounds reasonable? What do u think about averaging the shear flow between zero and max and then use ftp spacing assuming all are engaged d to meet the requirement?

I am making a composite wood beam out of a double 2x5 with a 2x4 flat on top. The beam is spanning 16 ft and is supporting 40 plf. Using shear flow to calc the fastened spacing for the flat 2x4 I am coming up with 50 lb/in! This seems very excessive to me. Anyone want to double check for me?

I have a structure with 4 rows of identical wood bracing such that in each orthogogonal direction their area identical and perfectly "shielded". I am using ASCE 7-05's lattice frame work coefficients; my question is whether I need to apply my calculated design pressure to each plane of bracing...

I have an existing structure supported over approx. 10ft of water by timber piles. I need to increase bearing capacity, uplift, and add fixity to the pile for lateral resistance. I was thinking of having a concrete block placed at the mudline of the pile underwater. The block would be secured to...