Solving Structural Engineering Challenges
As a young engineer, that’s what they called me. The lean, keen, structural machine! A skinny, nerdy young bloke, still wet behind the ears, that never understood the need for excessive design, or over-design, and saw it as incompetence. My designs attracted many questions from the drawing office and feelings…
It’s actually a trick question. Why? Because rebar does “one thing”, and steel fibres do “another thing”. You don’t get to choose. You either want the thing that rebar does, or the thing steel fibres do. You might want both. Then you use the product, or products, your concrete needs….
Bolts are an essential item in a bolted connection, and whilst that sounds like the ultimate obvious statement, you would not believe how many missing bolts we discover in our structural inspections. Some (due to misaligned holes) were NEVER installed. When we calculate bolt group strength, and we need 5.3…
In our last post, you learned how important it was to get the right geotechnical data for footing design. There’s a few different types, and the type of ground will help determine the most economical design. Concrete pile footings are a favoured footing type for overhead powerline poles and towers….
Engineering is about managing risk. Sure we have codes to design with, but do you know that codes provide minimum requirements? I believe that’s why most of our brick houses crack – “they’re within code” – but are we happy with the outcome that minimum requirements provide? There are instances…
So you’ve run a finite element analysis (an FEA) of a mild steel “thing” and have a lovely looking stress plot, but wait! Some stresses are 800 MPa and glowing red! What should you do? It’s extremely disappointing to know that some engineers – so-called experts in their field –…
Should you be concerned when you see a crack in a concrete wall or slab? Well, that depends. There are two classifications of cracks in concrete – structural, and non-structural. You should be immediately concerned about a structural crack. And you should be concerned about durability with a non-structural crack….
We often use retaining walls in places where extra support is needed to hold back a sloping patch of soil. The most basic function of a retaining wall is to battle gravity and the lateral force of the slope must be offset in the retaining wall’s design. The most common…
Look at the image. Not a cursory glance, actually look at it. Doesn’t it look like the long chains are in compression? Clearly they’re not, and magic is unlikely the reason it’s structurally stable. I’m fascinated by structures (not surprising since I’ve been a practising structural engineer for over 30…
Three months ago, I hired a new full-time engineer. Right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Well I thought it was the middle! Victorians, you wish! Why wait until now to tell you all? He was on probation of course. He may have been terrible, and I’d have just…