Recent content by akastud

All, I serve on an ASTM committee and have been tasked with rewriting the loads and strength portion of our particular standard. Historically our standard has used Factors of Safety for determination of acceptance criteria (essentially borrowed from another standard). These FOS do not...

All, First time facing this issue. Usually FEM analysis yeilds a thinner slab in practice for us so this issue hasn't arisen. We recently designed a PT SOG uniform thickness slab for a large apartment complex (6-8 units per building). The soils have large edgelift conditions andcomplex...

Does anyone know where to find design values for a 1 1/8" dia. hardwood dowel that you might find at a home depot? I am designing some ladder rungs and need some design values. akastud

Edward, Even if the depth of the foundation is only 6 feet? Akastud

All, I have a client who wants to build a cantilevered retaining wall that is outside the zone of influence for railroad cars. I understand that I will have no lateral pressure from the weight of the rail cars, but I am 15' away and I am curious if the vibratory loads should be of concern. I...

Lock up all your guns and give your mom the key right now, it could be a long time your an engineer! akastud

I wrote an excel macro to solve it, not too hard.

Yes it's iterative and it's a pain.

Schedule 40 = Standard Steel Pipe (designated Pipe2STD)

I design a lot of power lines in ice regions. In doing so we end up often using another code from the National Electrical Safety Council. In that code you put 9 PSF on your ice and another load case with full wind loads. I would feel comfortable putting less than 10 on the structure and I...

In my opinion Str II was easier than Str I.

mrpid, California requires you to be in responsible charge for 3 years after obtaining your PE (which in CA can be done after 2 years). I am from AZ so I got my PE 4 yrs after college and had to work for 3 years in responsible charge to be eligible. You do have to have 3 references from...

ARLORD, The lady at the board told me that the board itself has a revision to the law which will show up on their website after the next board meeting because the law officially has to pass through the consent agenda, but they are taking SE applications now for people without the civil PE. akastud

I called Nevada the other day because I am an SE in California and asked about reciprocity. They have just changed their law to not have to be a civil PE in order to apply for the SE. Therefore no civil exam is required for the SE in NV now. akastud

I sometimes like to use a #5 bar in each face to increase spacing. It usually requires the same amount of steel (sometimes a little less since you divide by d^2) but you use half as much grout. akastud