Structures > Buildings

Steel-frame buildings can provide excellent seismic performance when properly designed and detailed. However, earthquakes subject steel members and connections to repeated cycles of tension, compression, bending, and shear. Inadequate design, detailing, fabrication, or construction can lead to several steel-specific failure modes. General Steel-Frame Failures 1. Beam-Column Connection FailureBeam-column connections in moment-resisting frames experience large cyclic bending moments and shear forces. Modern seismic connections are specifically […] Read More

Introduction In structural engineering and real estate development, base isolation is often presented as the ultimate solution for earthquake-resistant buildings. It is true that by decoupling a structure from the ground, it significantly reduces the seismic forces transmitted into the building during an earthquake. However, the belief that base isolation is always the superior choice is a common misconception. While it is an exceptional solution […] Read More

Why Modeling Stairs Can Trigger Soft-Story and Torsional Irregularity Warnings — and How Structural Software Can Improve Structural engineers occasionally report that a building model behaves normally until reinforced concrete stairs are added, at which point soft-story or torsional irregularity warnings suddenly appear. Stairs are commonly included in analytical models because they contribute gravity loads, seismic mass, and sometimes structural stiffness. As a result, software […] Read More

Freshly poured concrete hardens within a few hours but needs about four weeks to reach full design strength. In multistory cast-in-place buildings, this waiting period can delay construction schedules, so engineers often remove formwork earlier and use shoring and reshoring to safely transfer loads to lower floors that have gained more strength. With proper planning, floor cycles can be reduced to about two weeks. Shoring […] Read More

From transforming a warehouse into an office building or reimagining a church as an entertainment venue, adaptive reuse is making old new again in cities across the country. Rather than demolishing structures that no longer serve their original purpose, adaptive reuse focuses on converting them into something new and useful to support sustainability and preserve history. Adaptive reuse has gained in popularity for a number […] Read More

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

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

Of course when we talk about structures, the first thing that comes to our minds is the buildings, as we live in them, and we see all sorts of them around. By buildings we mean all kind of buildings that enclose an area from outside and separates it with the outside… such as residences, offices, high rises, warehouses, factory buildings, sports halls, malls… Only after […] Read More