STRUCTURE Articles

Each year, the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) gives undergraduate engineering students the opportunity to apply what they’ve learned, and showcase their engineering skills, through the annual SEI Student Competition. I want to take this opportunity to recognize the top three […]

In 2012, three members of NCSEA Member Organizations under the age of 35 received scholarships to attend the Annual Conference in Saint Louis for writing essays on the benefits of Young Member Groups (YMGs) within Structural Engineers Associations (SEAs). Heather […]

It’s amazing that something as simple and as common as wood-framed stair stringers do not yet have specific prescriptive code construction provisions. Despite the commonality of wood-framed stair stringers, they still suffer from structural performance issues which result in scenarios […]

Small Effort Yields Big Dividends This article makes the case that the use of a Geotechnical Engineer for his/her engineering expertise could be more advantageous to the design team than a request for just low-cost drilling and a cheap Geotechnical […]

The Future of “Single-Source” Structural Engineering Structural engineering design firms looking for opportunities to increase revenue, which today should include most everybody, should consider looking to our close neighbors on the construction side of the industry for inspiration. Based on […]

We had an Earthquake in Virginia – Now what? The need to address regional aspects of the Eastern United States (EUS) in model building codes became even more evident with the 2011 Mineral, Virginia earthquake, the most felt event in […]

Code of Standard Practice for Structural Cold-Formed Steel Framing Cold-formed steel (CFS) framing is a bit of a unique product among the many other systems that comprise the structural elements of a building. It can be an industry standard shape, […]

Historical use of Power-Actuated Fasteners (PAFs) Power-actuated fasteners, also called power-driven fasteners, DX/GX fastening systems or shot pins, have been used for decades and are routinely used on today’s construction projects in a wide variety of applications. These types of […]

A Practical Approach Historically, equivalent static analysis procedures have been used to determine seismic design forces for conventional structures. In certain situations involving critical or highly complex structures, modal analysis procedures utilizing the elastic response spectrum concept have been employed. […]

In my last column, I proposed that the proper purpose of the practice of engineering is the material well-being of all people. This month, I would like to elaborate a bit on what this means and explore in more detail […]

Although mostly known as a world-class designer and builder of innovative steel bridges when he founded his consulting engineering firm in 1892, it was not long before Frank Chittenden Osborn (Figure 1) greatly expanded his practice to include the design […]

Steel deck is often installed using arc spot welds, either with or without weld washers. Arc spot welds, often referred to as “puddle welds”, are similar to plug welds except that the thin top sheet does not require a hole […]