How to self-teach structural engineering (incl. AISC/Euro Codes) ??? 3

[NaV86]

Hello peers!

Medior naval engineer here, with fairly good experience on ship strength (local and global) and relevant class rules.

The thing is that my new position is within the offshore sector and I need to make use of structural design and related codes,e.g. AISC/EC3, especially connection assessment. Unfortunately, on the job training is not an option since my seniors are not really into structural engineering.

I ask your kind help to find a way to self teach structural engineering, be it books, exercises, software to try and buy. Till now, merely reading the Codes hasnt helped much, especially to figure out the practical matters of designing and checking even simple structures and connections (weld/bolt).


thank you in advance!

 

[Retrograde]

Some good free info here:

https://www.steelconstruction.info

 

[271828]

AISC has continuing education offerings on connection design. I think the one that's most likely to be useful is by Tom Murray. It's probably listed under "Night School."

 

[dhengr]

NaV86:
Find yourself a Structural mentor in another dept. or outside your company, maybe through a Prof. Assoc. or some such. Get some good textbooks on Engineering Mechanics, Strength of Materials, Theory of Elasticity, Machine Design, Structural Steel Design, Connection Design, etc., and start reading. The J.F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation has a bunch of very good, and inexpensive ref. books. Two of the best are by Omer W. Blodgett, and are “Design of Welded Structures” and “Design of Weldments.” Don’t go immediately for some software, you will just be dealing with a black box, and never really learn anything. You’ll just learn how to plug-n-chug and not understand the results or what you are doing. You will need the various codes too, but they are not a good learning/teaching system, because there is a whole bunch of engineering which you need to know before you can really understand the intent and workings of the codes. One of the best parts of most codes and stds. is the commentary, which explains some of the thinking and intent, and often provides a ref. list. Come here, E-Tips, there are a bunch of really smart people here (Engineers, etc.) who are willing to help someone who is really interesting in learning and who comes with intelligent, well thought out questions and some native ability. Remember, we can’t see it from here, so a well proportioned sketch with sizes, dimensions, loads, all the important engineering design info. will get you better answers, and much less 20 questions, which just pisses all of us off.

 

[dreber]

https://www.youtube.com/user/AISCEducation/videos

Dig in and have fun. For people reading this later, I would normally recommend "never try and teach yourself structural engineering". The thing is that this industry is so much based on tradition and "we use it because it works" and other things, that you really need a few years (2-4 in my experience) before you even have a clue and about 10 years before you are any good. NaV86, doesn't count because they've been doing ship engineering for long enough to come across most of the problems a building engineer is likely to come up against.

also, this looks to be some code analysis of bolted connections.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDv8r6EjeDU

 

[Lomarandil]

Seconding "Design of Welded Structures" by Blodgett. Solid advice that's easy to digest.

----
The name is a long story -- just call me Lo.

 

[klaus.]

Well if you search google and/or Youtube you will find thousands of articles and videos....
maybe too much information on the internet

The question is .... do you want to study steel engineering or code usage ?
basic engineering is independent from codes

 

[CANPRO]

If you're doing significant steel design and you don't have "Design of Welded Structures" by Blodgett, I think you need to question some of your life choices. <- just joking, but seriously, its a classic and a "must have" reference book.

 

[cliff234]

The AISC Design Examples publication is great resource for learning more about connection design. The AISC Design Guides are likewise invaluable. All are free for AISC members. AISC also has about a hundred videos online from previous NASCC conferences (also free).