Structural engineering Definition and 49 Threads

Hello everybody, I am competing to make the most efficient (Has to hold the most while being light) balsa tower for a competition. I am looking for help in deciding on some designs and it will be very appreciated. Some extra notes: - have seen people hold 500 lbs with this competition prompt -...

When a dam’s reservoir is flooded, organic matter is decomposed into mercury which becomes methylmercury. It can be harmful to ecosystems and humans. I was wondering if there could be any way to prevent mercury from being produced or to deal with it if it when a new dam is built.

I have a barn that with a central bay that was originally designed for supporting hatywagons, so it's undergirded by three huge tree trunks used as beams (running longitudinally, parallel to wheel tracks). It has previously been rated by an engineer as being capable of supporting 45 psf at its...

There are lot of people on the Internet trying to build a cheap and sustainable house. Inspired by them I came with the idea of building external walls of Corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) and rebars and fill them with earth / sand. The basic element of the wall structure is this rebar trapeze...

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Hello, everyone. Does anyone know how much steam is produced by an electric arc furnace in a set amount of time? I have not been able to find any information on this despite how much water is no doubt used to cool the electric arc furnace. Can anyone help?

A project, that's fun, educational, cool-looking and actually useful! What more could you want? We're making topology-optimized floating shelf brackets today...

is T=2*q*A formuala valid for both open thin-walled and closed thin-walled members, where T is torque, q is shear flow, and A is the Area.

Hi, I'm a Civil Engineering student doing my final project for my BE degree. I have developed a software that uses a genetic algorithm for optimizing reinforced concrete columns. I have tested my program with a 17 stories building, and got some very unusual results in the design but much...

Hiya, I'm been calculating stress and deflection in rectangle steel plate, I've been using two methods to see if I get the same results but i get different results. I want to confirm the methods I'm using and if I'm using them correctly. I have attached photos of my calculations, any...

Homework Statement In this example , the author said that we can choose either G or E as redundant and ignore the force when we are doing the analysis ... I was told by my lecturer that when we are choosing the redundant forces , it''s important that after removing the redundant force , the...

Hello, My name is Molly Brown and I need help with basic beam and Structural Calculations. I'm not in college I just want to do this for my own satisfaction and desire to be able to understand this. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

I see that modern bicycles have curved front wheel forks , how does that affect stability ?

I have recently finished my junior year in high school. I am seriously considering astrophysics, nuclear engineering, and structural engineering. I would love to get a degree in all of them if possible but, which one should i get first to help me get a job to afford to get the others? what about...

dear all , My question is what is the maximum load taken by beam of UB 610 x 229 x 125Kg/m for a span of 5 mtr? its supported on both side by anchoring on concrete beam.

Hey Guys, I wanted to know if anyone knew the proof for the Simply supported beam with central load formula; wmax = F*L^3 / (48*E*I). I have looked some soureces up, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%E2%80%93Bernoulli_beam_theory , but i don't really understand how they ended up with...

Hello all, Our project needs to implement a force (strain) gage underwater for one of our tests. Our budget is pretty tight and we can't afford a wash-down strain gage that can support the forces that we will be operating at (~500 lbs). Does anybody know a way to hermetically seal a strain...

Hello everyone, I am civil engineering student from India. I am done with my undergrad with a cgpa of 8.5/10 and applied for colleges in America. I will be attending University of Texas at San Antonio for fall 2015. I am confused on which specialization that i need to opt for my graduation. They...

Hello I am looking for help with the following: I am designing a piece of furniture where most of the person's weight will be taken on a metal (steel) rod resting on a wooden batten. I need to calculate the diameter of rod needed to ensure it is safe to sit on. As a chemical engineer I have...

Hi, Right now I am in my 3rd year of a dual construction management and environmental engineering degree. I have an interest in building things (both design & construction), but more important to me is a career with a high income and quality of life. I am debating between a structural...

I have a 300 mm diameter hole in the ground surrounded by concrete. This hole will be covered by a steel plate. I need to get a machine of weight 2.5 tonnes across this hole safely without any bending of the steel plate. How would i calculate the required thickness of the plate? Thank you Ron.

Homework Statement Hello. I've created a small program to find shear and bending diagrams of the members of a frame. I was able to get the reactions at the support but don't know how to continue from now. This is an example of a frame all columns are 3m in height and the beams 8m. All the beams...

Hello. I have a project for next semester and I'm thinking of creating a program using mathematica to analyze a concrete frame to obtain the moment and shear diagram. What would you consider the best method for analysis. The loads will be uniformly distributed. Any tip will be greatly...

Hi, I am designing a concrete roof slab that span across 12m long and 9m width for my living area. The support columns are placed in each 4 corners and they are 300mm x 300mm size. The concrete slab roof is cantilevered out by 1.8m on 3 sides (not all 4 sides) with the thickness of 150mm. At the...

Hi, I am designing a beam to replace a load bearing wall. I have produced 2 separate UDL diagrams which, one for floor load and one for wall load. I am trying to find shear force and bending moment as in one for the total of the two diagrams. I know how to do it if the loads are spread...

I need help calculating the size of the wood members I need in my truss. I understand the basics; I first need to calculate the load, then the stress on each member, then pick a wooden member which has that stress with a safety factor of let's say 2.0. The reason why I want to perform the...

What is the difference between the unit dead load and the unit weight of a material? For example, the unit weight for structural concrete is 145lb/ft^3. What would the unit dead load be? 145lb?

I've recently started doing a lot more residential structural engineering for local clients and the first thing that I realized was that I was lacking a good beam calculator. I do have a number of spreadsheet calculators but I've found them hard to program and once I do have them programmed...

Hello, For a structural analysis term project I'm currently working on, my team has come across a problem. Here's the setup: Intermodal shipping containers (dimensions 8ft height, 8ft width, 40 ft length) can (according to company sources) be filled to a max load that grossly weighs 66...

Homework Statement Hi all, I'm writing an article for a scouting magazine. It is a short column to inform people about the danger of using long -badly supported - horizontal poles. I'd like to compare the situation of using a short beam and a long beam, and then able to tell a rough percentage...

Hi there, i hope someone can help me. I am just unsure how to proceed with this problem. Homework Statement The question and diagram can be found in the attached image. I am looking for assistance on part (ii) Homework Equations 1. Summation of Moment = 0 2. Summation of forces along x -...

Homework Statement Piano wire weighs 77kN/m^3 and breaks at a stress of 3000MPa. Calculate the length of piano wire that can be lowered down a very deep mine before it breaks. Homework Equations stress = force/area The Attempt at a Solution Piano wire = 77 000N/m^3 stress = 3000...

Hello. I am currently a mechanical engineering junior at the University of Kentucky. I am beginning to consider graduate school. I know I want to study applied mechanics, but am unsure of whether I should study CM as a ME grad student or SE as a CE grad student. What is the difference between...

Homework Statement Several beams of 533 x 210 x 92 kg/m UB section in grade 5275 steel are used to support a composite floor slab. Each beam is simply supported with an effective span of L=6.50 m. (a) During construction, before the floor slab is cast, a temporary concentrated load P kN...

Hi! I'm looking for information on how one would size a wide-flange beam knowing the live/dead loads and the span required i can't seem to find any calculations for this sort of thing! beam is not composite with floor

At the moment, I am a first year at BS maths & Physics student. I chose this because i really like Maths and Physics however recently I've been thinking about where i can go with this course. There arent many job prospects, and the jobs do not rly include very high salary. So it looks like I am...

Structural Engineering OR BSc physics&maths!?? i am currently a first year student in BSc Maths and Physics at the university of malta. I've alwyas loved maths and physics, and always have done really well in them. However my main problem is job opportunities i can have BESIDES teaching. can...

Im a junior majoring in civil engineering, and I am considering going to grad school to get a MS in structural engineering. i see that my school requires 36 credit hours for a MS in structural, which is about 12 classes. assuming that i took 2 classes over the summer, could i finish a MS in 2...

There are quite a few canalised streams in my area and I was watching one riparian owner's contractor rebuilding his stream retaining walls. The top 2 metres of these walls were being constructed in 225 (9") dense concrete blockwork, three leaves thick making a total wall thickness of 675...

1. Homework Statement Homework Equations I am totally confused about this question because of the Cantilever beam. I am usally ok with these questions but the addition of the Cantilever beam has thrown me off. The Attempt at a Solution Only been attemped without Cantilever beam.

Hello, I am assisting my professor by investigating the usefulness of Simscape in structural engineering. I have just recently obtained a copy of Matlab, and I am totally unfamiliar with the entire program as a whole. I was wondering if anyone knew of any good reading materials or tutorials...

The concrete highway bridge show in Figure Q3a is supported on columns at B and E, and abutments at A and F. The bridge has joints at C and D, which can be modeled as pins. Figure Q3b shows an idealised model of the bridge deck. Draw influence lines for: i) the shear force across joint C...

Someone with a BS in Mechanical Engineering can he branch off to graduate studies in Structural Engineering so he can be involved in construction projects, piping systems, water distribution systems and complex utility projects, etc. If so, what does he need to do.

Hey guys, so if you've seen my other thread I've decided to stick with Civil Engineering. I'm going into my third year and I'm going to start taking my technical electives. I've already decided to make my degree a structural focus but there are so many electives I can take and I have to narrow...

How can i find deflection in simply supported beam with multiple point loads ?

Hi, I am trying to write a MATLAB script to do an elastic analysis of 3D frame sturctures. The method I am using is the direct stiffness method, but I cannot find the equations for the 12x12 stiffness matrix for each member in the global system. If anyone has any information on 3D matrix...

Will a timber beam deflect more than is safely permitted? If a timber beam has dimensions of 225 mm by 75 mm and holds a UDL of 3.5 kN/m over a span of 4m. And If Young’s modulus for the timber is 10 kN/mm2, how much will the beam deflect? A joist bending moment calculation? A joist has...

Can someone please help me start this question, I missed some vital notes in class and don't know how to do it. I just need to know the method so I can go on to do it myself Thanks :) http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/3743/question70yu.th.jpg

I'm not sure the formula to use to calculate the deflection of a beam. Here's the information I have got. Steel beam is 50 feet long. There is a 6,000 pound load in the middle(all other loads are disregarded. The modulus of elasticity is 29,000,000 psi. Moment of inertia is 850 inches^4...