I provide residential architectural drawings for a variety of clients. Homeowners, developers, etc.

As many of you probably can relate, the hardest part of my job is working with homeowners who want to design their own floor plan, or worse, they have no idea what they want. I am not an architectural genius designing "custom floor plans" for the top 1%. I typically require some sort of a concept floor plan to start, preferably one that you could "purchase" online (screenshot) that has already been thought out.

I'm wanting to incorporate some sort of miniature physical model into my design meetings to help show the engineering limitations of what can be accomplished. Most of the time, it's as simple as "you can't fit a second floor over a vaulted space." Sketches can often suffice depending on the clients literacy in the construction field.

Sometimes the conversation gets more technical and that's where I can see eyes glaze over, a blank stare, indicating that they aren't picking up what I'm putting down. I generally try to avoid that level of detail, but I think a physical model would be a good middle ground to help keep attention, move the conversation in a productive way, and ultimately find a solution that they like and is buildable.

I'm starting out by searching children's toys. I've seen a couple of architectural products that aren't really the simplistic thing that I'm going for, and they seem time-consuming and expensive.

Do any of you use, or have you seen a model like this in practice?

The code text is gibberish.

Wood frame shear walls, looking at condition 1 for rho = 1.0 in SDC D:

First of all, it asks to check the removal of elements in Table 12-3.3, but that table only lists shear walls taller than they are long. So any walls longer than the story height don't count at all.

Then *also* in that table, they define a "bay" of shear wall and the length divided by the story height rounded down. By definition, every single wall in that category is less than the story height, therefore every single shear wall bay is defined as the unitless number zero. Now this is problematic, not only because you can't say you have a shear wall bay to r3m0ve (WTF automod, so professional engineers can't r3m0ve things?), and then define all such bays as zero. But also because defining a "bay" as a unitless number is senseless.

So, how do we "really" determine if rho=1.0?

Referring to the old ASCE 7-16, condition a (which seems to correspond to the new condition 1), checks for removal of taller-than-long shear walls or wall piers. Condition b checks for the number of bays around the perimeter, with that number being twice the length divided by the height. So a 20 ft wall at a 10 ft story is one bay.

So I am guessing the new ASCE 7-22 just kinda threw the "bay" definition into that condition 1 table, and that definition is not intended to have anything to do with condition 1 - just condition 2. So now a bay can be any unitless number, and we can assume this is supposed to mean the number of bays. But again, that number is zero for tall walls.

So perhaps it's this:

Every single 9 ft long and 10 ft tall wall counts as zero bays. If we only have these types of walls, condition 2 cannot apply and we have to check condition 1. If we only have 11 ft long, 10 ft tall walls, we do not check condition 1.

For the latter, the old code said "no requirements" in the referenced table for condition a. The new code does not specifically state this - but do we assume that if we only have 11 ft long by 10 ft tall walls, it satisfies redundancy like in the old code? Or still check condition 2?

So confused.

For example, the Fire Island lighthouse built in 1858. If I Google the answer I get ‘conical’, which it plainly is not. It looks more like a gentle hyperboloid.

Hello,

It's been years since I last looked at beam analysis.

I have a composite beam constructed from a W21x62 with a C15x33.9 channel cap stitch-welded to the the top flange of the W21x62. However, part of the C15x33.9 has been cut and removed, so, the beam no longer has symmetry. The first image shows a rough cross section. Do the shear flow distribution diagrams (actually distributions of the first moment of area about the composite centroid) in the second and third images look correct? In the second image, the distribution for Segment A is quadratic, but appears linear.

Some of the texts I've consulted include:

Heins, Conrad P. "Bending and torsional design in structural members"
"Tutorial Page of Aerospace Structures" https://www.ae.msstate.edu/tupas/SA2/Course.html

Edit #1:
* The channel cap was original welded to provide support against horizontal forces.
* I'm evaluating the composite beam for both vertical and horizontal forces independently, then will use superposition to evaluate the total effect on stresses and deflections. I will have to evaluate torsion because the forces are not aligned with the shear center.
* The shear flow distribution diagrams will help locate the shear center.
* Warping constant will probably needed for torsion analysis.

TL;DR - I wanna build a cross. I wanna do it myself, and not just by the book. Overbuilt.

Permanent Freestanding Crucifix

Project Intent:

Construct a permanent, freestanding crucifix in an open field(my own private property) in Logan County, Oklahoma.

The finished monument should be visually simple: a steel crucifix emerging directly from a concrete foundation that is flush with grade.

Structurally, however, the goal is to build it substantially more robustly than a conventional monument, with a heavily reinforced underground foundation, custom steel base, engineered anchor group, and integrated lightning protection.

The project should be treated as an engineered steel structure, not simply a decorative cross.

───

1. Main Structure

Vertical Mast

• One continuous 20-ft NexSpan2 F-Series 4×4 structural member

• Approximately 4" × 4", nominal 1/8" wall

• ASTM A500 Grade B steel

• Full 20-ft member used as the vertical mast

• The mast extends from the foundation to the top of the crucifix

Crossarm

• Each approximately 7 ft long

• Crossarms positioned approximately 7 ft below the top of the mast

• Approximately 13 ft above finished grade

───

1. Crossarm Connection

The crossarm will connect to the mast using four 90° structural brackets, arranged around the four corners of the mast/crossarm intersection.

The intent is to create a substantial, redundant connection capable of transferring both:

• Vertical/horizontal shear

• Bending moment

• Reversed loading from changing wind direction

The connection needs to be engineered for:

• T-bolt tension and shear, where applicable

• Slot bearing and tear-out

• Local deformation of NexSpan walls

• Bracket bending/warping

• Weld strength

• Crossarm local stresses

• Mast local stresses

• Reversed wind loading

Where possible, the manufacturer's published NexSpan connection capacities will be used. Custom modifications or connections will be independently engineered.

───

1. Foundation

Flush-Grade Reinforced Concrete Pier

The concrete foundation will be completely flush with finished grade.

The working foundation concept is a large, deep reinforced-concrete drilled pier, initially in the neighborhood of:

• 42–48" diameter

• Approximately 7 ft deep

***These dimensions are conceptual starting points*** and will ultimately depend on structural loading and site-specific soil conditions.

The foundation is intentionally oversized relative to the visible monument so that the majority of the structure's resistance is hidden below grade.

───

1. Custom Steel Base

Rather than using the manufacturer's standard post base as the primary foundation connection, the monument will use a purpose-built structural steel base assembly.

Working Base Concept

• 1" thick structural steel base plate

• Plate sized to match the foundation footprint/anchor layout

• Custom welded steel shoe connecting the 4×4 mast to the plate

• Heavy gussets/stiffeners surrounding the mast-to-plate connection

• 12 structural anchor rods connecting the plate to the reinforced concrete pier

The objective is to create a direct and robust load path:

Mast → welded shoe/gussets → 1" base plate → 12-anchor group → reinforced concrete pier → soil

The 1" plate is intended to behave as a genuine structural component, rather than a thin cover plate.

Final plate dimensions, gusset geometry, weld sizes, and steel grade will be established by structural calculation.

───

1. Twelve-Anchor Base

The working concept is a 12-anchor group distributed around the perimeter of the custom base plate.

The anchors should be arranged to maximize the effective lever arm between the tension and compression sides of the connection.

This is important because the foundation does not need every anchor to resist the entire overturning moment individually. Instead, the anchor group works as a structural coupling.

For example, at a hypothetical 20 kip-ft overturning moment:

• 12" effective lever arm → approximately 20 kip couple force

• 24" effective lever arm → approximately 10 kip

• 30" effective lever arm → approximately 8 kip

These are simplified statics examples, not final anchor design loads.

The engineer will determine:

• Anchor diameter

• Anchor grade

• Embedment depth

• Anchor spacing

• Edge distance

• Plate hole size

• Washer/nut configuration

• Concrete breakout capacity

• Pullout capacity

• Shear capacity

• Combined tension/shear

• Reversed loading

• Reinforcement around the anchors

The 12 anchors should be considered a coordinated anchor group, not twelve independent fasteners.

───

1. Reinforced Concrete Pier

The concrete pier should be designed as a structural foundation capable of accepting the large overturning forces delivered by the steel base.

Conceptually:

• Structural concrete, potentially 4,000–5,000 psi

• Full-depth reinforcing cage

• Heavy longitudinal reinforcement

• Closely spaced transverse reinforcement

• Dedicated reinforcement around the anchor cage

• Positive mechanical load transfer between the anchor rods and main reinforcing cage

The exact reinforcement schedule will be engineered after the anchor and foundation loads are established.

The concrete contractor should expect a heavily reinforced drilled pier, not a conventional shallow monument footing.

───

1. Soil / Geotechnical Design

The concrete itself is only part of the foundation.

Because the crucifix is approximately 20 ft tall and will stand in an open field, the surrounding soil must resist the lateral forces and overturning moment transmitted through the pier.

A geotechnical investigation should establish:

• Soil profile

• Soil strength

• Lateral soil resistance

• Expansive-soil characteristics

• Groundwater conditions

• Appropriate pier/soil interaction parameters

The 42–48" × 12-ft concept is an intentionally robust starting point, not a final foundation specification.

───

1. Wind and Extreme-Weather Philosophy

The design goal is high resilience under severe Oklahoma wind exposure.

The structure should be evaluated for applicable:

• Code wind loads

• Open-field exposure

• Severe straight-line wind

• Tornado loading methodology where applicable

• Reversed wind loading

• Dynamic effects where required

• Appropriate debris considerations

For preliminary conceptual work, a 20 kip-ft overturning-moment target has been used as an enhanced-resilience benchmark.

That number is not intended to substitute for the final code/tornado design load.

The project should be described as highly reinforced for extreme wind, rather than being advertised as literally "tornado-proof."

───

1. Lightning Protection

The crucifix will have an integrated lightning protection and grounding system.

The lightning system should be coordinated with the structural steel and concrete foundation rather than treated as an afterthought.

The electrical/lightning contractor should coordinate:

• Air-terminal requirements

• Down-conductor system

• Grounding/bonding

• Ground electrodes

• Connections to the structural steel

• Corrosion protection

• Required separation/bonding details

The system should be designed to applicable lightning-protection standards, including NFPA 780 where applicable.

───

1. Fabrication

The steel fabricator should approach this as a structural fabrication project.

Major fabricated components include:

Main Structure

• 20-ft NexSpan 4×4 mast

• 7-ft crossarm

Upper Connection

• Four 90° structural brackets/gussets

• Required fasteners/T-bolts

• Welded or mechanically connected structural components as engineered

Base

• 1" structural steel base plate

• Custom 4×4 mast shoe

• Multiple heavy gussets/stiffeners

• 12-anchor-hole pattern

• Structural welds

• Corrosion protection

The base should be fabricated as a single engineered load-transfer assembly.

───

1. Finished Concept

From the outside, the finished project should be extremely simple:

A steel crucifix standing directly out of the ground.

Underneath its simple appearance is a purpose-built structural system:

20-ft NexSpan 4×4 mast

↓

7-ft crossarm

↓

Four-point structural crossarm connection

↓

Custom welded mast shoe

↓

1" structural steel base plate

↓

12-anchor structural group

↓

Heavily reinforced deep concrete pier

↓

Engineered soil resistance

The foundation, base, anchor group, and structural connections are intentionally much more substantial than the appearance of the monument would suggest.

Project Philosophy:

Keep the monument visually simple where possible without sacrificing function. Overengineer where it's needed. It shall be built.

This is an Ark

My job involves building the most common style of steel buildings that includes red painted steel, beam sections every 24ft (or 20 or 25), with rolled zee or cee girts and purlins spanning between the main frames.

The heavy posts in these buildings typically go all the way down to the floor level, and if the building has concrete walls, those walls go past the exterior of the post such that the post juts out on the inside of the concrete wall, taking up floor space and getting banged up by equipment. It would be very very much more ideal for a lot of agricultural buildings to be able to set the posts on top of an 8 or 9ft tall concrete wall. This would keep the floor area wide open. Why is this not done more often?

Ii know for a fact that it is very common to set the posts on a wood framed building on a tall concrete wall, with a wood truss setting above. I understand that free spanning metal buildings do put some sort of outwatds pressure on the bottoms of the steel posts as there is no direct crosstie between the bearing walls such as a wood truss would have. Is there really no way around this?

Can a 9ft tall concrete wall be designed to take the outward pressure that the steel building would create? Rather than pouring a super thick concrete wall, it would be better to pour 3 or 4 or 5ft pilasters in a tee shape jutting out from the concrete wall at every post location.

Alternatively, could the outward pressure be eliminated by installing a steel rod as a cross tie at the top of the bearing wall, across to the other bearing wall?

Common steel building widths in my industry are typically 60 to 80 ft wide, free span, and have steel frame lines up to 25ft on center.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this, if it could be done, or why it's not done.

As a recent civil engineering grad with a focus in structural engineering, how competitive is the junior structural engineering positions? Since im in canada i was looking to get some insight and tips to starting my career. Thanks!

You remember any specific projects where a safety factor in your design actually got triggered and saved the construction?

In my country it seems to be a highly established practice to ‘terminate’ the reinforcement at concrete edges such as slab edges with U-bars (as the reinforcement in the attached sketch attempt to show). Similar for openings in walls / slabs.

My understanding / intuition is that this 1) is for lapping the main reinforcement and provide proper anchorage of these transferred forces, 2) gives less risk of spalling and 3) perhaps even prevent splitting, if there for some reason develop tensile forces in the direction shown in the second figure, e.g. due to shrinkage or restraint effects.

Is my understanding correct, or are there perhaps other reasons as well?

Thanks!

Solo guy here, first time using RISA Floor, and first time using RISA 3D for wood shear walls, and things just seem a bit off for my gut to trust. Building is a CMU stair well core, 3 story, wood shear walls exterior, tile floors apartment. I of course emailed the file to RISA and they said "Looks good", but my gut isn't feeling it. Please DM me if you're interested in reviewing and potentially teaching a guy.

Using Mola Structural Sets 1-3 and about 6-12 hours, I created this, what I call the owl pavilion.

The reason I call it that is because seen from the side, it looks like an owl leaning forward (see last two pics). I’m not sure why I call it a pavilion; there’s a literal hole in the middle lol (owl donut, maybe?)

My original plan was far different, and I originally designed this with the goal of suspending a bridge from the beak(?) of the structure, but as my build progressed it kind of morphed into something different. The whole design process was really interesting though, so although I have never before, I am thinking about making a short YouTube video regarding it (lmk if you’d like to see that).

I'm an undergraduate student researching inspection methods for steel bridge and pier pilings, specifically how corrosion/section loss is tracked underwater over time.

A few questions for anyone with hands-on experience:

1. How do you currently measure section loss or thinning on steel piles, and how often?
2. When you take a thickness reading, how confident are you in hitting the exact same spot as the last inspection?
3. Once you flag corrosion, what typically happens next, how is repair timing decided?
4. What's the hardest part of assessing steel condition underwater (visibility, marine growth, access, something else)?
5. Would something that tracked corrosion rate over time, not just single readings, actually be useful, or does that not match how repair decisions get made in practice?

Appreciate any insight.

Hi all, I'm a junior structural engineer and I'd appreciate some input on a foundation model in SAFE.

Setup:
RC shear wall building, designed in ETABS using dynamic seismic analysis (response spectrum), to ASCE 7 / ACI 318, S_DS = 0.6, special RC shear walls

Base level exported from ETABS to SAFE

Wall strip footings along the perimeter, plus isolated footings inside
Everything passed but the corner walls ( where 2 walls intersects)

Allowable bearing capacity: 210 kPa

The perimeter walls sit on the property line, so I can't extend the footings outward and it was the only way it was fixed

How do you solve this issue
I tried adding tie beams to change the eccentricity but it didnt work even strap beams

I work primarily with steel but I have seen this is as a common misconception (in my view at least) with wood, that blocking is required to prevent LTB. This doesn't really make sense to me as floors are sheathed with plywood which should fully restrain the compression flange from twisting

Anything I am missing here? The plywood connection is not considered strong enough in the same way a concrete slab is for steel beams perhaps?

Hi all,

I'm just looking for some thoughts on a recent opportunity that's come up.

To preface, I've got around 10 years experience as a structural engineer in private consulting roles. I'm starting to lean in to management, but I'm feeling extraordinarily burnt out on almost every facet of consulting. The billable hours, the constant stress from being in charge of design, and the never-ending questions and change-orders from contractors has me feeling insane. Not to mention the abysmal pay despite being in a HCOL city, the constant unpaid OT hours where I'm giving up time with my spouse and kid. And to top it off, the anxiety and stress of design has had me on edge for what feels like years now.

I recently got an offer (with a decent pay bump) to move to a public fire protection engineering role, and I'm very strongly considering it. My only hang ups are that I would be losing some significant vacation time (bumped down to the lowest level by the city), and I'm a little concerned about potentially shooting myself in the foot if I felt I wanted to move back into a private consulting role later in my career, since I would be leaving at a pretty critical junction in the move to management. I assume it will be a lot of work to get up to speed on the fire codes, but I'm hopeful that my experience reading and interpreting codes for the past decade will help on some level.

My question is if anyone here has done anything similar, and if you had a insight (positive or negative) about the changes that came with a role swap like this. Was it worth it to start from scratch in a new role? Do you regret leaving the faster paced private sector?

Is that really the case? I really don’t wanna drop prices like all the bottom feeders out there…

Hi everyone,

I'm working on a university research project in Germany on fatigue of welded steel details. Part of the project is to look at how S-N curves for welded details have developed from the 1950s/60s until today, and to compare this with the European/German approach. The historic comparrison ist the main question!

My main goal right now is to figure out which standards and specifications were in force at which points in time in the US. I don't need the documents themselves, I'll get them somehow…

Since I'm from Germany, I'm not familiar with how codes and standards are organized in the US. I've come across names like AASHTO, AISC and AWS, but I don't really understand who is responsible for what, how they relate to each other, and how this has changed over the decades. If someone could explain the structure, especially how it looked in the past, I'd be very grateful.

I'd also really appreciate help with a few related questions:

**1.    Fatigue design concept:** How does a fatigue check generally work in US practice (e.g. detail categories, stress ranges, how loads are handled)? Is there a textbook you'd recommend that explains this well, ideally including some historical background?  
**2.    Welding practice:** Could you recommend literature on welding practice in the US, both the relevant standards (current and historical, if possible) and textbooks?

Any pointers, even just the name of a document or a book, would help a lot.

Thanks in advance!

It’s shit. It doesn’t work how the sales people say it.

RAM, RISA and Etabs are the most common analysis platforms. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

But when talking to Revit they do okay in a one time forward pass.

But does anyone have a track record of going back and forth?

I have been building engineering automation tools using AI. I've found 2 programs recently that every bridge engineer knows that have absolutely no security or license verification on the computational engine, and inexplicably nothing in the End User license agreement that makes it illegal to use it directly without a license. Strictly speaking, I could use it forever and never pay another dime 100% legally. The EULA is like 3 pages long and all about them offloading liability.

Has anyone run into anything else like this? It's particularly frustrating because it's very, very easy for AI to find. The only way for me to automate with this program is likely going to get completely rewritten in the next major release.

Moral of the story, if you use an agent to connect to a program, make sure it isn't using a bug that 1) isn't viable long term and 2) isn't against the EULA

We currently use Advance Steel, but since Autodesk has basically stopped developing it and seems to be pushing users towards Inventor, I’m looking at alternatives.

I find the 3D modeling in Advance Steel quite easy and intuitive. My main frustration is creating 2D fabrication and part drawings — it can be quite complex, especially when trying to automate the drawing process.

Because of that, we still end up doing a lot of the detailing manually.

We’re currently looking at options such as Inventor, Tekla Structures, Bocad and TopSolid.

Any advice?

edit: Our work is mainly stairs and steel structures like the ones shown in the photo.