Have a bit of an unusual little project to analyze elevator rail stops, which are used as a barrier for the elevator techs to test the pressure in their hydraulic system.
Attached is my analysis attempt. It is the impact analysis only, not the analysis of the connection strength. Any critique...
The state I work in is performing a comprehensive structures load rating. The Policy and Procedure Manual outlines the basic guidelines for how they want things to be done. They specifically are mandating that LFR to be performed on all bridges that were designed with either LFD or WSD. Only...
We perform a ton of post-fire reconstruction and evaluation (mostly conventional framing) - I am sure a lot of people here have performed them frequently, as well.
After a few hundred of evaluations, I have begun to question our techniques in our evaluation/replacement/strengthening process. It...
Refer to Chapter C27 (Commentary) page 550 in ASCE 7-10
"The constant 0.00256 reflects the mass density of air for the standard atmosphere, that is, temp of 59 F and sea level pressure of 29.92 in Hg, and dimensions associated with wind speed in mi/h."
When deriving the constant, ASCE has...
Have a torsional connection at the top of a concrete footing (supporting a relatively light item with a lot of surface area). Therefore, wind is my evil loading...See attached sketch.
Torsional moment is 9.5 k-ft - not large, but trying to get an estimated weld length has been difficult. The...
I had to "dabble" in some mechanical design and check flange sizes and rods/bolts for a 54" DIP main at a valve gate as part of a potable water system.
Do these components generally see a cyclical loading that would require fatigue to be checked?
In Russia building design you!
...a mechanical engineer.
I did some structural design for a buried concrete tank and thrust block a year or so ago. Subsequently, I was asked to size tension rods, bolts, and plates for a restrained ductile iron pipe joint, which was to be housed in the buried concrete tank. This DIP is very...
The attached photo is of a 50-foot tall or so stone retaining wall adjacent to the northern portal of the Howard Street CSX tunnel in Baltimore, MD. The tunnel was constructed in the last decade of the 19th century, so I assumed that this retaining wall is dated the same, as the stone type is...
... a mechanical engineer.
I did some structural design for a buried concrete tank and thrust block a year or so ago. Subsequently, I was asked to size tension rods, bolts, and plates for a restrained DIP pipe joint, which was to be housed in the buried concrete tank. This DIP is very large...
I am about to start preparing to study for the P.E. However, I recently read an article in Structure Mag that tried to convince the reader how P.E.'s 40+ in age didn't have to worry about failing the S.E. exam - that it just required a strong study regiment and excellent organization of...
We are thinking of purchasing Enercalc as it seems to have quite the list of modules for the wide variety of projects we work on. Any opinions?
"Structural engineering is the art of modelling materials we do not wholly understand into shapes we cannot..."...ah...screw it, we don't know what...
Our firm does a ton of rehabilitation/adaptive re-use projects for various building uses. I tend to see many buildings in the city (as I am biking or walking around)with banners/signs from developers/rehabilitation contractors advertising new space for lease.
Although there may be no RFP or...
Designing buried concrete vaults for a waste water commission that house various mechanical equipment. They are not fluid-retaining structures. Can anybody come up with an argument as to why one should design per the ACI 350? (Personally. I think it is overkill to do so)
"Structural engineering...
Where is the best source for median salary data? I'd even pay for a source with excellent statistical info.
"Structural engineering is the art of modelling materials we do not wholly understand into shapes we cannot..."...ah...screw it, we don't know what the heck we are doing.
What are some textbooks to recommend for advanced excel users wanting to exploit the limits of the program? I found one text for structural engineers (which is ideal for me), but they referenced excel 2003. I have heard 2010 has some cool functions and I want to read a text to see if it is worth...
I checking some FEM output and came across an elementary question since being out of school for such a while. In a linear elastic model, is there any time when stress is NOT proportional to external loading due to geometry, loading distribution, etc?
The person running the program needed to...
This question is directed to my structural colleagues who have modeled a composite steel girder/concrete deck bridge in a finite element program,i.e. MDX, RISA, etc.
We all know this standard structure type has loads distributed to long. girders via simplified S/5.5, etc. for new design...
I will try to keep this short and sweet. I recently, and for the first time, designed a rectangular stress block for a 54" DIP pipe operating at a peak 250psi thrust. This resulted in a roughly 900kip factored thrust.
As, the structural engineer, I had no idea what thickness DIP was being used...
