By robertmote on
3/8/2010 9:00 PM
Civil Designers realize the writing is on the wall again. The brutal transformation of draughtsmen to designers was an end of an era, tradition. The legacy remains but that is now in peril. It is the same crisis engineers have been walking through blindly. We are a profession in crisis where our expertise is being sacrificed on the altar of economics. Construction takes the bullet for delays, questions, bad details and confusion. Project engineers promises to do better with better technology. The truth is all problems start in engineering and quality checkers are worth their weight in gold. Don't invest in technology, invest in experience. Put engineering first, management second.
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By robertmote on
2/20/2010 2:08 PM
Dare you take the this quiz? Structural engineers spend a lot of their time doing calculations. Have you ever thought to ask if they like doing it?
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By robertmote on
2/4/2010 9:29 PM
Engineers are reluctant to change their methods of creating calculations, understandably so. Their experience is the greatest justification for what they do. Many engineers insist they are not interested in new ways when their confidence and experience worked well, in spite of the acknowledged deficiencies within the profession. Where is the incentive to change?
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By robertmote on
1/16/2010 3:10 PM
The supposed rave of Microsoft Office 2007 does not reach the shores of the engineering profession; just another saga in a legacy of defaulting confusion.
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By robertmote on
1/15/2010 6:05 AM
MathCAD has its followers and is to be commended for the user-awareness approach and examples. However, it is a powerful tool that can be an over-indulgence for the simple tasks in many engineering situations. I advocate the power of Excel over MathCAD, not just for the spreadsheet layout but for the productivity that can flow from adding VBA.
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By robertmote on
1/11/2010 12:46 AM
This example shows a few pages from the calculations for a building subject to Blast using the ASCE 97.
The purpose is to show how Word can be used to capture Excel results. The Excel files and pdf files can be downloaded from http://www.motagg.com/resources/ for closer examination.
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By robertmote on
1/5/2010 4:51 PM
While engineering calculations are not always critical deliverables, they are the bedrock of the structural engineering profession. The attitudes are generally that performing calculations is a necessary evil. The licensed engineer, leading the team, becomes the manager for many levels of qualified engineers and learning graduates who are preparing the justifications for the design. Each of these individuals have a history of preferences, idiosyncracies, opinions and experiences that become reflected in their calculations.
Drawings are ready for approval, how are the calculations coming along?
Now someone has to check their calculations...... Where do you start?
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