Assignment 3 Comments

Assignment 3 seemed to go fairly well for most of you, although many of you mentioned that it was a difficult assignment, particularly for those not in the structural concentration. I think that you all have the typical assignment comments down by now for the most part. Follow the rubric, fill out every section, make educated attempts, etc. I'm going to focus my comments here on some general structural things that many of you seem to have missed or struggled with.

-Many of you only showed beams spanning from column to column in your steel framing plans. In typical cases you also need beams spanning in between these beams. This is because a normal floor or roof system can only span 5-10 feet. If your columns are more than this distance apart, more beams are needed to support your slab.

-Typically structural engineers do not like things interfering with their structural members. This is because their calculations are based upon having the full capacity of the shape. Cutting out a section of a steel beam or column obviously decreases its capacity. So while it may be possible, it should be avoided unless absolutely necessary, as it will lead to complicated calculations and larger structural members. A good example of this would be not putting windows in a shear wall, as they disrupt the flow of the loads through the wall.

-Almost all of you modeled your building in SAP. This is completely fine, but a bit unusual to me. My (admittedly limited) experience has been that SAP is best used to analyze single beams and smaller structures in cases where you have complex loading or need very in depth analysis of what is happening in a smaller area. Programs like RAM Structural are more often used to model whole buildings and size members, columns, and foundations. SAP is fine, but those of you that are interested may want to explore other programs in the future.

Overall you all did well. If there are any questions or comments, let us know.

Best,
Steve and Brad

Assignment 2 Comments

Assignment 2 was an overall success.  Nailing down the architecture section quickly will be one of the most important things when you get to senior design.  Once we know for certain what the building will look like, we can begin the real design process. 

For the most part, the drawings provided were well done.  Many groups failed to include blow-ups of important areas, but most were clear enough without them.  It would be nice to have seen more numbers attached to the sizes and loads in some of the buildings, but the basics were provided.

Hopefully the fire protection work showed you that fire code can be hugely limiting in the design of a building.  Floor plans are often dictated as much by fire code as by anything else.  

Remember that as you go through each assignment, one of the most important things is the recommendations section.  Here is where you can go to see problems that previous groups may already have identified for you to consider, and where you can provide information on problems that future groups may encounter when they work on the project.

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

- Brad and Steve

A3 Presentation Information

For the wrap-up of the structural design we’ll have another presentation.  Here’s the relevant information to plan for your presentation.

• Length: 3 min
• To Cover
• Basic Structural System Choice
• How gravity and Lateral loads are carried to the ground
• Changes from Architecture
• Advice to HVAC Engineers
• Voting for 1-point extra credit
• Here’s the link for individual voting after the presentations