If your office and its culture are consistent with most structural design firms, you probably embraced the load and resistance factor design (LRFD) approach for reinforced concrete years or even decades ago. For many, working stress design for concrete is a totally foreign concept, while LRFD ‘strength’ design is what you probably learned in school and practice to this day. …
If you are like me, you emerged from your collegiate experience with a broad array of fundamental tools in structural design that, hopefully, armed you adequately for your chosen career. I recall finishing my bachelor’s degree and having a skill set that, in retrospect, might be described as “barely sufficient”. With this statement, I do not mean to diminish the quality of my education, nor the dedication or expertise of excellent professors. …
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he will end in certainties.
– Francis Bacon
Practicing structural engineers must make decisions on safety, cost and utility even when “hard information” is not available. “Bayes’ Rule” is a mathematical tool for using experience and judgment to calculate the probabilities that could guide these decisions. The engineer assembles data such as test results, develops a hypothesis relating the data to underlying causes, and uses Bayes’ Rule to calculate the probability that the hypothesis is correct. …
Provided by Matthew Stuart as an online supplement to the original series of published articles. The author takes sole responsibility for the content of this add-on, which is posted for the benefit of the structural engineering community. Neither STRUCTURE magazine nor NCSEA Media, Inc. can be held responsible for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions, and inclusion on this website does not constitute endorsement by STRUCTURE magazine or NCSEA Media, Inc. …