Pedestrian Bridge 12

[medeek]

Technically I'm not suppposed to engineer this bridge. They will be replacing the main members and deck exactly as they are currently constructed so as to avoid having to bring it up to code:

My responsibility on the project is to simply document the process, draw an as built of the bridge and provide a scope of work (what members are being replaced etc...) The pilings were inspected and approved by some state agency and were deemed acceptable so those will remain.

In the process of replacing the main members the owner would like to do some minor upgrades:

1.) Provide strapping to secure PT glulam beams to pier system directly below.

2.) Provide strapping between abutting PT glulam beams for continuity and so beams have less chance of "walking" off of their bearing points. This pedestrian bridge services the golf course as well as pedestrian traffic so vibration from vehicles (albeit small) is something to consider.

3.) Provide some form of anchorage between the abutments (concrete) and the end terminal beams. Currently they are just bearing on a concrete ledger without any securing mechanism, see image below:

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[hokie66]

dhengr,
I think medeek has gotten the message. Your last posts probably crossed.

medeek,
Good decision.

 

[medeek]

This is why I had to walk away from it, even though it cost me some time and money. I explained to the parties involved that they can't have it both ways. If they want to involve me and expect stamped documents it will trigger a proper engineered design, I can't be expected to work as a draftsman and then be leaned upon for the potential liability.

I have been doing structural work for almost two years now. Just because I started as an ME doesn't mean anything. I know two other practicing structural engineers who both began as ME's and ended up in the structural field. To be honest I feel that an ME actually has a better grasp of certain fundamentals that a CE might not. Whenever I encounter a project or potential project that is outside of my experience and comfort level I immediately consult with a couple of very experienced structural engineers who I have worked closely with the last couple of years. In certain cases I have ended up turning over entire projects to these more experienced engineers. In recent months I have tried to work out a joint program or a peer review arrangement. Unless I stretch myself and reach out to some of these projects I do not learn and my own progress as any engineer stagnates. The key of course is to gain more knowledge and experience while at the same time ensuring that the product I provide meets engineering standards, code and life safety issues. With peer reviewed jobs I typically make very little, most of it going to the consulted engineer, but that is the price of education.

I disagree, it is up to the building department to enforce the city building code and the law. Granted he may lean on me for some guidance but ultimately he is the law and if he allows the owner to proceed with a repair without a full engineered design that is within his power and jurisdiction to do so. If I were him I would insist that that bridge be brought up to current code or no permit. Unfortunately, the politics in this small town may unduly influence the decision.

If I disagree with their decision to simply repair the bridge as is do I have a duty or recourse that I can or should take, and secondly if I were to publicly disagree with this decision would it not simply be viewed as a conflict of interest since I am losing a potential job and money because of their decision.

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[medeek]

I think where I took the wrong turn on this one was agreeing to draw up their as-built and scope of work after they had made the decision they would not engineer the bridge. Both of my mentors agreed that you cannot work as a "non-engineer" as an engineer. That is the take away from this experience.

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[LittleInch]

This has been a fascinating discussion. The other thing to look at this is when does a "repair" become a re-design. Replacing "the main members and deck " doesn't seem to leave much left other than the rather spindly looking legs. Even from the photos supplied and your posts there appears to be a number of repairs and alterations ( those cross braces don't look too sophisticated) which then makes it impossible to decide what was the original design. There's usually a ROT around which says if you're replacing more than 30% of the original it's a new build, especially if this includes the main structural members.

A 50 year old bridge in that location just must be life expired. How the city inspector has not simply condemned it I don't know.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[sandman21]

You should not be stretching yourself on other people’s dime and a peer review process is no substitute for learning under licensed engineer. If you want to represent yourself as an engineer specializing in structures than you should be working under an engineer with qualifying experience.

The city is not leveraging any liability, they are requesting a letter which hundreds of building department request when reviewing repair work. This is spelled out in the code, it is the responsibility of a registered design professional to determine the ability of the structure to withstand vertical and lateral loading and if the structure is noncompliant what is required to bring the structure to compliance. You do not have the qualifying experience or the stamp to provide this letter or make the evaluation. If you provide the letter or recommendations and an issue occurs you are responsible not the city.

 

[medeek]

Section 3405.4 of the IBC 2012 allow for repairs to the original state when the damage is not substantial, otherwise it would appear that the repairs must meet current code. I'm going to say in this case that repairs are substantial based on the definition from Chapter 2 in the IBC.

@Sandman21

No, the city was not requesting a letter from me to assess the bridge and its current state, the decision was already made that they would not engineer it and they wanted documentation for the repair and as-built drawings as currently designed, any draftsman could provide that information. Trying to be helpful I let myself get caught and offered drafting services. Then the owner started plugging me for ideas with regards to upgrades etc...

Unfortunately, due to the economics and population base of the area I work a good percentage of my time is spent providing design and drafting services for residential customers rather than purely structural analysis. The upside to this is that I get to be involved with many facets of a project rather than being pigeon holed into a specific task. The downside is that the engineering sometimes takes a back seat to the design work.

I don't stretch myself on other's peoples dime, I stretch myself on my own dime. If this project were to ever land in my lap it would be a joint project with myself and one of my mentors (PE, SE) who has considerable experience with these types of bridges.

@LittleInch

This is why I post on this board, even though it is not always fun to take some of the heat from certain corners. The conversations are always quite lively and usually quite educational. Generally though I find it is often hard to get a consensus on a specific matter. You can ask the same question and get ten different answers, and they are usually all over the board and every shade of the rainbow. Even my two mentors, whom I absolutely respect, had completely differing opinions on this bridge project. Sometimes it takes a few heads getting together to get it right.

I think the reason this bridge was never condemned years ago was that no one ever actually looked at it and the owner kept applying small fixer uppers to keep it from having any major issues. There are numerous repairs and even some of the main beams have been replaced, all without permitting or approval. The first thing I did was condemn it and subsequently the City roped it off. It doesn't take an expert to say something is wrong when you can take a screwdriver and physically push it all the way through a 5-1/2" glulam beam. However, it did take a formal letter to the City citing life safety concerns before any action was taken. Given the state of the bridge I would say the repairs are 10-15 years past due, and the City is very lucky that there has not been a catastrophic failure which would have resulted in serious injury or death.

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[sandman21]

"Then a couple days later they send him an email requesting that a engineer or design professional at least provide a formal scope of work and as built drawings for the bridge and its repairs since they had nothing on file (bridge was originally built back in the 1960's with no drawings or plans)."
This is part of the evaluation requirements for a repair with substantial damage, section 3405.2.1. You can’t know if the impacts are substantial or not without an assessment of the damage. You do not have the qualifying experience, or stamp, to make this determination. One of your “mentors” should have been reviewing the bridge and making the determination, with you providing the drafting, so that you could actually learn. This is the part that people have an issue with; you sold services which you are not qualified to perform. Any liability insurance you may have would not cover the damages should something happen.

If someone is paying you for the work that you are stretching yourself with, than it is there dime that you are learning on. You can’t have a joint project as it will be someone’s stamp and they would be the EOR.

 

[medeek]

Just so we are perfectly clear, before I quoted the job or took any money or even offered my services I accepted the invitation to come and look at the bridge with the owner and snap a few pictures and crawl around the abutments and underside of the structure. My next action was to contact one of my mentors, meet for lunch and discuss the proper course of action. At that point we came up with a proposal that would involve a re-design that brought the bridge up to code, essentially replace the bridge in its entirety. The initial assessment was not actually done by me it was done by my mentor with my participation. At that time I also composed a letter to the City condemning the bridge to all traffic with my stamp on it.

After the decision was made by the owner and the City that a replacement was too costly and the best course of action was a repair they approached me for a scope of work and as-built drawings. I viewed these as a drafting assignment not as an engineering assignment, and mistakenly so. This effort was terminated by me shortly thereafter upon talking with my mentors about liability and what was the perceived intent of all parties involved.

In this whole episode the only money I have received is for my initial site visit to survey the bridge and for my letter to the owner and City.


On previous jobs I have worked with my mentor where I do the engineering and stamp it. They then review my work (drawings, calculations), typically ask a number of questions regarding various assumptions, sometimes provide corrections or alternative solutions based on their experience. Then at the end they compose a letter stating that they have thoroughly reviewed the packet and stamp and sign it. Is there something wrong with this procedure?



A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[medeek]

@Sandman21

Even though I disagree with you on a few points you do bring up a good point with regards to how to address jobs that come up where experience or knowledge is lacking.
The vast majority of jobs I see usually involve residential or light commercial work involving convential light framed construction however once in a while something comes along that is either completely bizarre or somewhat outside my comfort zone. Most jobs can be categorized into the four following groupings:

1.) Knowledge and experience coincide with job -> Take job and complete it as the stamping engineer.
2.) Knowledge and experience mostly coincide with job -> Take job and complete it as the stamping engineer with peer review.
3.) Knowledge and experience do not coincide with job but want experience -> Work with other engineer on job or similar arrangement.
4.) Knowledge and experience do not coincide with job and do want experience -> Pass job on to other engineer.

However, sometimes certain jobs don't fit so nicely within the brackets. What is other's experience in dealing with this sort of thing. When can you stretch yourself a little but don't put yourself at risk. When and how do you draw the line?

I have found that education does not come cheap. I either end up having to spend a lot on other consulting engineers or I spend a lot of time and hence money in the books.

A good example is pole barn buildings. A year ago I had never analyzed a pole barn (only conventional framed structures up until this point) and then a job came along. On this one I took the study the books approach as well as contacted one of my mentors who allowed me to purchase some of his pole barn plans for study purposes. I went into the job thinking I could figure it out in a week. A month later I had finally figured out the details behind pole barn analysis, and came up with a nice spreadsheet calculator in the process. Unfortunately, the extra time taken to complete the job was just something I had to eat. The customer was inconvenienced by the time I took to complete the job but was forwarned that it might take longer than expected. In the end did the customer get an inferior product, I would submit that they did not. In fact, I probably went far and beyond the call of duty in my analysis because of my own insecurity and because I tend to be a perfectionist.

In a perfect world when I decided to cross over into the structural field I would have loved to find employment with a structural firm that had some SE's on board who could eventually endorse me so that I could sit for the SE exam. Unfortunately, our system does not look kindly on people that want to expand their boundaries. At 40 years old no one wanted a ME who is interested in becoming an SE. One principal I interviewed with came right out and told me that "Why would he want to hire a stamping ME and train him when he could easily hire a kid fresh out of college and pay him considerably less for at least 10 years". Even though I was willing to take a pay cut to make the transition I was mostly laughed at by all of the big and small firms I applied at. At 40 years old if you are not firmly entrenched in your discipline let's face it your "washed" up, or at least that is the message I was getting.

Luckily there was one engineer who was willing to take me on and offer me some jobs that were basically very low paying but enough to at least get my foot in the door. After quickly realizing (within a matter of two to three months) I was leaps and bounds ahead of this engineer and their methods I decided to strike out on my own. This has not been without some difficultly as I have had to turn away potentially lucrative jobs that were above my pay grade. After a couple of years though I'm now at the point where I feel I have enough experience to begin to push my education and reach out to more opportunities.

The point of this post is that as an engineer you should always be learning, if you stagnate you are retiring in my opinion. I am not just talking about learning the new provisions of some minor code cycle updates but also stretching oneself to better understand topics that you are currently not an expert in.

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[hokie66]

sandman,
I don't see how you can make such general statements about medeek's qualifications based on what he has told us. It sounds to me like he acknowledges his level of experience, and although he is a PE, he realizes that he still has some learning to do. Don't we all?

 

[bookowski]

He's not attempting to retrofit the golden gate, I would feel perfectly fine driving my golf cart over that thing if he (re)designed it.

Medeek - your system is not unreasonable. Lots of people work at what are considered top notch companies and get little to no mentoring and very little oversight. Everyone has a different path into it but I'd bet a good portion of us taught ourselves just as you're doing, even if we weren't solo like you are. Most of us are still doing it in fact - why else are we asking questions here?

 

[canwesteng]

If medeek is just doing mostly conventional timber residential it doesn't seem so bad to me. It's straightforward and wasn't covered in my uni anyway so he wouldn't be much less qualified than whoever else does it. Once you get into concrete, midrise/highrise, and high seismic areas, I think a one man mech eng shop would be way over their head, but you'd need an SE for that anyway no? If you pass the SE that's a bigger statement of your qualifications than your degree imo

 

[Archie264]

I've seen some big stuff come out of a one-man shop. But then, come to think of it, the one man had a junior engineer and one or two draftmen working for him so maybe it wasn't really a one-man shop other than in terms of the overwhelming force of his personality. In that sense it was a one-man shop.

Medeek, congrats on successfully pursuing your goals. I once heard of a "Dear Abby" advice column wherein the correspondent wrote something to the effect that he had always wanted to be medical doctor but now he was 36 and if he went to med school for four years, followed by another four years of residency, he would be 44 years old when he got out. Her response was to ask him how old he would be in eight years if he didn't go to med school.

 

[MotorCity]

While I do not doubt medeek's ability to design/retrofit a small timber bridge and I applaud his efforts to learn new things and seek help along the way, if he were to seal the drawings I could see where the state licensing board may have an issue (especially in Washington where states with an SE license tend to be more critical).

With a mechanical background (and I assume a mechanical degree and sitting for the mechanical PE), the state board would probably say that your area of expertise is mechanical not civil/structural. To seal structural drawings, you should be a licensed structural (PE or SE). To be a licensed structural you not only need 4 years of experience under a PE/SE, but also the appropriate degree.

If you are not sealing the drawings and are simply contributing to the project under the supervision of the EOR, I think this type of project would be an excellent way to broaden your experience.

 

[jayrod12]

I disagree that your degree must define your career. The only thing my degree taught me was how to learn. Otherwise almost nothing I took in school do I use to any significant extent. I've seen many posts started by or replied to by Medeek. He is more structural than a lot of people here that claim to be. This conversation comes up once every few months where someone rips him because his title says mechanical. It's really time to get the mods to change that for you.

Medeek puts more thought and time into small projects than a lot of "high-level" engineers put into large projects.

 

[MotorCity]

I agree that your degree does not have to define your career, but it does define how you earn your PE in terms of the education requirements. I think many (most) engineers will say that they have learned more after school and when they were in school, and medeek's case seems to be a fine example of that.

 

[medeek]

I've asked them to change my title but I guess they probably have other things to do, and I don't see a way to change it in the profile options.

Jayrod12 you bring up a interesting point with regards to degrees and testing. When I took the PE exam in Oct. 2012 I had been out of engineering school since about 1996. The basic engineering stuff like statics and free body diagrams you never really forget but a lot of the other more mechanical specific topics I basically had to relearn almost from scratch, or at least if felt that way. Overall a very strange experience as I reviewed intensely for the exam (about 4 weeks) and slowly everything came back to me.

Now 4 years later I have been focusing and honing my knowledge and skills in the structural field and to be perfectly honest I doubt I could answer less than 50% of the mechanical questions that I successfully answered on the PE exam without some test preparation or review. This gives me some pause and makes me wonder how well do the NCEES tests really guage one's performance as it relates to practical engineering. The other important point it brings out that unless you are using specific knowledge on a daily basis that knowledge soon goes by the wayside. At the very least though, the test proves that you have good test taking skills and the ability to retain some knowledge to a certain degree no matter how briefly.

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[MotorCity]

medeek - you hit the nail on the head. Having a PE does not make you a good engineer and not having one does not make you a bad engineer. At the very least, it means that you were able to pass a given set of questions on a given day and can legally seal drawings. I have worked with extremely intelligent and capable engineers who took 3 or 4 times to pass the PE....not because they did not possess the knowledge but because they froze up when taking exams, had poor time management during exams, etc. I am just wondering how a state board would view it.....could you sit for a civil/structural exam if you had a mechanical degree and your experience was structural related? I don't know the answer to that.

 

[medeek]

According to the rules listed by the State of Washington I could sit for the 16 hour SE exam. What I am missing is 3 projects which are considered significant structures. All of my work to date is with non significant structures. I don't even need to the be the EOR on those projects, just some level of envolvement that can be attested to by a sponsoring SE.

To sit for the Civil/Structural PE exam in Washington either education with 4 years of related experience or 8 years of related experience (no education) would be necessary, at least that is how I am interpreting the rules. To obtain an SE only two additional years of experience is required and the type of PE you hold prior to the SE is not specificied.

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[XR250]

@Mdeek;

I am an ME as well. I took the ME EIT exam but the Structural PE exam.
I now have 24 years of experience and have had the benefit of being able to do some ME jobs in the past.