Structural Engineering

A waffle slab is made of a thin topping supported by ribs running in both directions, giving it the appearance of waffle when looked from below. Waffle slabs are a special type of reinforced concrete slab, where aesthetics meet with certain structural characteristics. They have advantages such as the aesthetics, higher load capacity and longer spans. Since they are stiff due to their higher overall […] Read More

Masonry construction dates back thousands of years. The builders of the past, took advantage of compression strength of stone and were still able to build amazing structures, without even possessing the technology to take on tensile forces, which only became possible in modern times with steel. In our age though, masonry is also combined with reinforcing steel, to make it much more ductile and resistant […] Read More

This is one of the posts in a series of our posts that we discuss failures. Also check out the other posts in constructmagazine.com, where we discuss failures in different contexts of civil engineering. A Brief Introduction of Earthquakes vs. Structures: Earthquakes are very important aspect of most design in civil engineering, and for any type of structure. The fundamental earthquake principles as it applies […] Read More

Structural engineering is a major branch of civil engineering, and realistically the first thing that comes to mind of many, when the words civil engineering are mentioned. It deals with designing the body of all types of structures and their supplementary components, connections, attachments per the criteria given in codes, to ensure public comfort and safety. As we mentioned in the previous post in Construct […] Read More

Engineers make assumptions all the time. All these assumptions are backed up by logic and theory, so instead of pursuing exact values, in civil engineering often times we are okay with close enough values, as long as the results are within acceptable limits and we can justify it with relevant proven theory. Doing so, saves a great deal of time and effort, which makes developing […] Read More

For non engineers, structural analysis may seem like an overly complex subject. A person who is not a civil engineer will never be required or even allowed to solve a real structure, but it is still good to give some general idea for learning. This came to my mind when I heard a question once, from a nonengineer, who drew sketch of a really simple […] Read More

In seismic analysis of structures, Equivalent Static Analysis and Response Spectrum Analysis are two methods that analyze the elastic behavior of a structure, in other words, the behavior of the structure without considering any yields (plastic hinges). But how do they differ? Equivalent Static Analysis is the simplest most straightforward analysis, which will either suffice for simpler structures or you need to do anyway to […] Read More

In this post we will look at various aspects in structural analysis and modeling of Masonry structures. Read More

This is a very useful method, which is also allowed by AASHTO or bridges and ACI 318 when designing concrete bridge and building structures respectively. By making use of this method, the stresses especially in members such as deep beams can be more realistically represented. The struts here represent the imaginary compression members of a truss and ties are the imaginary tension members. We place […] Read More

We must consider earthquake loads when analyzing all members of a structural system. A structure is a whole unit, inseparable from each other. One effect on one member has effect on other members. Therefore we can not just isolate beams and say “earthquake loads are lateral so why do we analyze beams for earthquake” At the most basic level, the beams hold the columns together […] Read More