Thank you, henri2,
Yes, I am very familiar with Mohan Malhotra's work at CanMet. Several years before I became an engineer, as I was designing that green building - researching materials for such attributes as low lifetime embodied energy, use of waste products, reduction of greenhouse gas...
heynewp, yes, I have had some excellent experience with HVFAC - 56% by portland replacement volume. So many people think that using fly ash is simply a way to get rid of a waste material from coal-burning generation plants. In fact, fly ash as a portland replacement can vastly increase the...
It has been quite a while since I last posted to this site. I am now working in the Arctic and have been asked by one of the small communities to design several small bridges to span steep gullies and seasonal streams. These bridges are for All-Terrain Vehicles or snow machines (pulling heavy...
It has been several years since I have posted a question to this site. I am working in the Arctic and have been asked to design some small bridges for one of the commmunities here. As you may imagine, materials are extremely costly to ship up (once a year barge or flying in makes it all...
Thanks, Dave Adkins! Interesting comment about SST and brittle screws. -Aton Sustainable, Solar, Environmental, and Structural Engineering: Appropriate technologies for a planet in stress.
Jim6758: Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, I am aware that HVFA concrete can be slow to set. In my case, I will be in control of the placement and schedule, since I will be the contractor for this experimental building, as well as doing the engineering. No client, small building, my...
Great to hear the follow-up story, JAE. This is how we all can learn.
Sustainable, Solar, Environmental, and Structural Engineering: Appropriate technologies for a planet in stress.
I often have difficulty with the nuances of the "law", and find the discussion about what constitutes an "engineer" fascinating and very, very timely. There is no question that many have used the title "engineer" when they in fact never graduated from an...
Sorry I came into this discussion late, Concerned. Perhaps you will visit this site again. I pracitce engineering in Canada, and serve on my provincial Engineering Act Enforcement Committee of our Engineering Association. I do not know how engineers are seen legally in other countries, but...
gilliang, on the surface of things, it does not sound as if you have anything BIG to worry about (with the usual engineer's disclaimer, etc, etc, and without seeing the job!). It would seem as if you did the structural engineering, and your carpenter carried out your instructions. I, too, am...
You're right, Blacksmity: many different systems - and that's why we get the really big bucks, eh? Canadians can't talk about a 2x12 anymore. Instead, we are supposed to know that it is now officially a "38x286".
But, at least within systems there is concerted movement toward...
Wonderful tale! Now, THAT'S the way history should be taught! butelja, you have made my day. Sustainable, Solar, Environmental, and Structural Engineering: Appropriate technologies for a planet in stress.
In this age of calculators, spreadsheets, programming, etc, in one sense it really shouldn't matter what system we use. Conversion utilities abound. And precision is simply a matter of what your needed tolerances are. Cabinetmakers work to 64ths of an inch, while machinists work to...
Hi, Automotive person: Unfortunately, I know very little about metallurgy, but...I'm not sure why you need to make these knives yourself, but my advice would be, if you can, to simply ask a woodworking cutter tool shop to do you up knives to your thickness and length specifications. Every...
I am not going to enter into a futile debate about whether we have 35 years (as US DOE predicts) or 60 or 52.568 years of oil reserves left in the world. The fact is that reserves are finite, and at some point in the future we will run out. The more intelligent question is, "What, as...
Thanks, Padlofski. I had gone into the Cadkey site a while ago, and it seems that they had long since removed the downloads that I need.
e-mailing you now...
-Aton Sustainable, Solar, Environmental, and Structural Engineering: Appropriate technologies for a planet in stress.
Thanks, Spirit. Yeah, 30+ years ago, when I became involved in my work, I promised myself that if I ever came to resent it due to what Quebecois call "les choses quotidiennes" - roughly translated as the daily grind, then I would quit and become an astronaut. Or maybe a rock star...
Good point, Headran. These values you presented correspond exactly (after metric translation!) to those given in our WDM (Table 9.5.1A) for horizontal diaphragms over D. Fir/Larch framing. However the final entry in this Canadian table is for 5/8" ply (15.5 mm), using 3" nails (10 D...
