Engineering Library

[ivanlocke]

I am working for a public water distribution department, but the projects I am involded in range all over the place. Any construction on our grounds I am going to be designing or watching over (have designed retaining wall and am going to watch over steel storeroom construction) and in the system I am involved with water distribution, some sewer (blowoffs and pressure relief), and utility bridge/carrier beams.

We currently have a very limited library consisting of water specs and standards and for any other subject we only have textbook like references. I am going to be able to able to request references I need, but its going to be much easier to get many of them at one time rather than on an as needed basis.

I was wondering what people would suggest as necessary and very useful to have in an engineering library.

I believe most of the design standards required for the PE would be useful: AISC Steel Construction, BOCA, ACi Structural Concrete.

How much can be found online? How much can be used from manufacturers design manuals for their products?

Thanks for any input.

 

[cvg]

try the army corps of engineers - they have an extensive online library of engineering design manuals and specifications

http://www.usace.army.mil/pubtypes.html

 

[BigH]

I agree with cvg - they have some good manuals. Don't sell the US Navy short, too, for they have a lot of shore facilities that they do.

Might also want to check out CalTrans:

http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/constrution/Manuals/ManualMain.htm

They have a good manuals on Shoring and Trenching; Foundations, Prestressing

 

[sc]

I am a structural engineer in Australia my library consists of:

1. an online library composed of manufacturers of products (eg steel beams, timber beams, cladding, bricks, etc). This is actually a set of favorite links to web sites.

2. Email notification of new standards so that my standards are maintained.

3. The Institution of Engineers Australia maintains links to Engineers Australia for reference books, abstracts, etc.

4. Old favourite design manuals that offer good practical advise rather than full on theory.

5. Product manuals including design guides, etc. I maintain these as current documents as many of my clients use proprietry systems for building works, hence I am required to understand these systems from the design and construction perspective.

My main library items are the Australian Standards (PDF files). I ensure that I have and use the relevant standards for design of steel, timber, concrete, loading, soil mechanics, etc as these are often enshrined in law via reference from Regulations. Thus if I design in accordance with an AS then I often OK in terms of liability, etc.

regards
sc

 

[dpa]

For great advice on steel design the Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation puts out some super, very practical, engineering books essentially at cost as a public service. One of my favorite things about these books is that the equation for shear flow is listed as Vay/IB rather than VQ/IB. What moron ever came up with Q in the first place? If you don't remember what Q is you usually have a very difficult time remembering what text book it was in. Why substitute a meaningless term for two very real and obvious terms?

They also have some excellent information on the stiffness of welded plate structures complete with photographs of lab testing which backs up their equations. There is a good section on tank design and an excellent discussion on why polar moment of inertia is worthless for torsional calculations.

I got mine at the University Book Store at the University of Washington. (206) 634-3400 Design of Welded Structures is the main reference although they have several others. Todays price at the U Bookie is $25.00.

 

[kenvlach]

Buy the JF Lincoln Foundation (& some Lincoln Electric) books direct at

https://ssl.lincolnelectric.com/lincoln/spmount/

E.g.,
Design of Welded Structures,
By Omer W. Blodgett, Sc.D., P.E., Hardcover, 832 pages
$20 (+shipping).