Structural civil engineering is a part of civil engineering. The primary goal of a structural engineer is to design a structure, regardless of the type, that’s built with solid integrity, with a great amount of care paid to dependability and safety of the structure.

What is included in structural engineering? Many things like planning, projecting, and attention to detail. E.g., a structural engineer may design large machinery such as cranes, or bigger pieces of medical gear or furniture. A structural engineer may also design and build several vehicles such as watercrafts, spacecrafts, aircrafts, and heavy trucks.
[Read more →]

In the construction of floor and roofs steel joists have been used with great success over the years. In some cases however these assemblies need to be protected in case of a fire. The easiest way to do this is a direct application of a fire resistant product, or to add a membrane that is heat and fire resistant.
As a rule, the steel joists for certain constructions manufactured today have a built-in quality of fire resistance. Complete assembly description are however obtainable, either from the manufacturer or from a body called the fire resistance directory. If, for example the rules of construction and the requirements for fire resistant steel joists are not followed, a building or construction can be declared unsafe by the building inspectorate. Repair costs are always an unnecessary burden. The materials used in construction, especially the steel joist, carry enormous amounts of weight, and if the materials used are low grade or below the required standard, the safety of the populace can be dangerously jeopardised.
[Read more →]

When erecting a building, there are quite a few very important issues to consider such as:
Soil depth, for the design of basement, foundation, retaining walls and other below ground level structures;
Roof design, especially in areas where heavy snow is experienced; the snow carrying capacity of the roof must be determined and the pitch of the roof is to be designed accordingly.
[Read more →]

Strength design has been utilized formally since the middle of the 1950’s. This was when the American Concrete Institute added code language. There were initially no prescribed procedures but with some continued research in methods and applications this method was brought into the mainstream. In the latest updates about reinforced concrete, this method dominates all else. Estimates say that ninety five percent of engineers follow this method.
Meanwhile, engineering students through the years have been taught the principles of strength design. Experts believe that strength design can’t confine what the new engineers get to learn. The engineers should be conversant in both strength and stress design and even in emerging “strain” design methods. They claim that to understand and be able to work in any method is the measure by which a complete engineer is weighed.
[Read more →]

Strength design and the design of allowable stress use a combination of many dead or live loads so as to engineer a very safe structure. It additionally uses a variety of resistance factors for each individual structural element so as to calculate precisely, the factor of safety. The values of materials cannot always be repeated. For example, one steel beam will always have a different value of resistance from the other. Though Whittow is a strong proponent for traditional stress design, he prefers using newer methods when required. Allowable stress design was prominent until American Institute of Steel Construction started to update their codes so as to include strength design.
The advantage of Load Resistance Factor Design or strength design is that it returns to the idea of factor of safety according to Tom Whittow, a vice president of computerized structural design in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He explains that one can adjust the factor of safety simply by varying the materials used, failure types and the mixture of dead and live loads. Calculations in strength design give the engineer the flexibility of adjusting for axial compression, bending, shear and other similar impact loads at a much higher level than required. This gives a higher degree of factor of safety. Fallah Shaikh, a professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, says that to be able to use material values in complete absolute terms is a great advantage in strength design.
[Read more →]

A homebuilder uses a lot of material when putting up a new house and how it all comes together, is key to the finished product, and a homeowner’s satisfaction. But what if a homebuilder could go in knowing they had material that was made with precision; each piece calculated to work just where they are placed. That’s the advantage of engineered wood.

Simply put, engineered wood is made with calculation, so it is strong, stable and more exact to the same pieces of dimensional lumber. The manufacture of engineered wood includes calculations for what exactly each piece will be able to hold up in a home. The pieces of the lumber themselves are made from wood veneers, particles, glues and resins.

Because of their makeup, pieces of engineered lumber can be used to create large open spaces in the home, without using other posts. Engineered lumber can also make other large structural elements with virtually no chance of failure.
[Read more →]

Much is made of the breakthroughs in new kinds of lumber to put up new home with bigger spaces and fancy benefits for homeowners, but there are still some unsung materials used in homebuilding — sheet goods and the metal which keeps everything together.

While lumber, both engineered and dimensional is used for the skeleton of a new home, sheet goods provide the important skin that keeps the frame secure. The two important types of sheet goods are oriented strand board (OSB) and plywood. Each can help keep down the shrinking and swelling of the home and are versatile enough to be used on the exterior of the home, the sub floor and the interior walls.

“I pay a lot of attention to lateral movement,” says home building expert Tom Silva. “On a windy day, I don’t want a house to even creak once.”
[Read more →]

By working together and concentrating on strength design in building construction, architects, engineers and others have given a big boost to the safety of homes in the market. And fortunately, they are also using technology to add even more measures to strength design.

And strength design is just one of part of the collaboration, learning and cooperation that goes into making building processes as good as they can be. That’s why it benefits all parties when architects are learning about what a structure’s material will hold, how it bears the weight and how the engineering works in real world scenarios.

In a recent report, Tom Whittow, a vice president of computerized structural design in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said that by learning about the whole picture of strength design, architects will help the process of converting buildings from blue prints to finished product. No longer is there any need for architects and engineers to be speaking different technical languages. Architects need to know as much as they can about how materials are used and how the structure connects. And engineers need to know the reasons why an architect is approaching the design in a certain way. The process is a two-way street.

“Architects think about the structure as a whole when they create a design,” Whittow said. “When they do, we can choose LRFD or allowable stress calculations to better accommodate the structure into the building they’ve designed.”

One of the ways that strength design has become more of a guideline for factoring in more safety precautions into home building is because of computer technology. The new technology is able to take into account all of the materials and strength design and deliver very specific calculations to engineers, architects and all parties along the line.
Fallah Shaikh, a professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said that the assist from computers is a benefit.

“There is a need to augment any design method with other considerations,” Shaikh said. “An engineer’s own incisive judgment about the potential of the structure must also be brought to bear.”

Care should be taken in the design of a fire resistant assembly, for the simple reason that to remedy incorrect procedures can be costly. It is the model structure codes that are able to distinguish the requirements of the fire-resistance for any structure that is based first and foremost on many different factors. These factors will include, but are definitely not limited to all the types of occupancy, for example business and assembly. The size of the building is also included, like the area and height, so also the type of construction you are dealing with and also the location of the building premises.
Fire insurance evaluation should be done beforehand, taking into consideration the agent’s as well as the building code’s requirements. Consider the protection needed for the assembly after fire resistance requirements have been established. This protection can either be direct fire resistance application or membrane protection, such as protection provided by the ceiling of a structure. Applied fire protection is obtained by spraying the steel joists directly with fire proof material. The selection of roof and floor types should be considered next. Lightweight concrete can be used for the construction of the floor and a rigid insulation for the roof.
[Read more →]

The key towards the proper structure of a good home is the foundation layout, normally referred to as the structural design for which it was originally designed. These original structural designs are the framework which keeps the property standing with the construction materials strategically placed to make sure that the entire structure conforms to the initial design standards. The foundation is important and that is why solid ones have been placed there from day one.

The materials used here such as steel and other base foundations are usually designed to stand for a long time. The only time that they would disappear would be when demolition would take place. Demolition of a structural framework normally occurs when a homeowner decides they want a totally new structure to replace the existing one. Bear in mind that this rarely occurs, as unless the property falls in the hands of new owners after a sale transfer, for instance, the chances remain that the original structure will remain for a long period of time.

Structural design guides are the benchmark for construction engineers before they push forward with new design plans. The structural design phase is extremely important as each design has to conform to location and codes for the new design layout requested by homeowners in an attempt to capitalize on modern designs. While to some it may be a problem, it remains that such constraints are common to any undertaking. Beams and foundations are chosen for a reason, primarily for load support. Taking them for granted will only create problems and if that happens, the whole design would most certainly be compromised.
[Read more →]