5 Top Tips for Engineering Students - Do your maths

5 great tips for students in engineering college [university]. This movie edit was inspired by a great little find on YouTube [here]. In this 'how to' video by UCaccend - they talk of how to refine your study strategy for surviving in university, if you are taking an engineering degree. "Do your maths homework".

Please pop over and tell them how good their videos are ;-)

We decided to add our own personal touches to create our video - a kind of a parody. For fun and your entertainment, we also added a backing track, and spliced in some more engineering video clips which were brought to our attention over the last few weeks. Thank you!

We hope you enjoy this, and it is an experiment - much the same as the crowd funding venture which we kick-started a week ago [here]. Please please click on the link and show your support. Even if it is just a message, we welcome it :-) 

We believe that it is as important that we as engineers not only innovate using building materials, and during the construction process BUT it is becoming more and more important that we engage and support engineering social endeavours too. This being one of them.

So, if you have any questions about what it is I am trying to do - then first have a read of the link above and then email me. 

OK, time for a bit of fun now.... enjoy.

Engine[er]

Do your maths homework

Engine[er]

The Greatest Engineers of all time

NEWS UPDATE: THE PITCH IS LIVE!!
http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/investment/top-trumps-the-greatest-engineers-of-all-time-636

Fantastic news. Just recently as a direct result of the information gathered here on our blog and on the structural engineering LinkedIn Groups that we frequent - we have forged a list of 60 engineers [mostly but not exclusively structural and civil engineers].

That's great, but what has that got to do with you?

Well, we have a proposition, and we think that you will like it.

If you have never heard of something called crowd funding before, then be prepared to be educated.

Crowd funding is a fairly recent phenomenon which has it's roots in the sphere of charitable organisations.

What happens is that a project that needs some investment to get it started is presented to the public to join in and make it happen by pledging a small donation to the cause.

If the project has enough people behind it, investing in it - then it happens. If the funding does not reach the intended level - the venture fails and the project is shelved [but not forgotten].

I have been collecting names of engineers from you all since November and individually sourced statistics from a small amount of you too [massive thank you!!]. We now have the basics of a Top Trumps ® stylised deck of playing cards which will include some of the greatest engineers of all time.

All we need now is a small amount of investment from everyone.

So far, we have been accepted to pitch our idea to you via Crowdfunder.co.uk. The pitch has been completed and all the boxes ticked, pretty soon though, the project will be available for you to view and comment upon [once the last set of approvals have been made by Crowdfunder].

We have now posted the link up for you all to view and contribute.  I will not spoil it by giving you every last detail here and now... but if we manage to make this happen, this could be an important stepping stone to making a larger future project happen, which will blow your socks off!


Engine[er]

#EpicFAILS 4 [Structural Engineering]

DOH!

This week I will finish the #EpicFAILS off with 3 examples of engineering malfunctions on an grand scale. The results of the mistakes vary greatly - but the underlying question is always the same.

"...Who checked these?"


Silver Bridge Collapse, Ohio , USA [1967]
#Killed [seriously injured] - 46 [9]
Designers & Contractors - The General Corporation & the American Bridge Company
Failed due to - Low redundancy in design [high tension eye-bar chains]

There were a number of reasons why this bridge was said to have failed. It did fail though, and at the height of rush hour - claiming the lives of 46 [2 of which were never found].

The system of heavily loaded eye-bar chains had been used and was being used on a number of bridge designs worldwide. One such example was the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, UK. The big difference between this design and the other examples was redundancy. Or lack of.

The eye-bar chains were a 'special' high tension steel design, and attracted more than twice the load of a simple mild steel alternative. This in itself was not a problem, as it was proven to be able to hold the load expected of them. The problem occurred when one failed due to corrosion, minute stress fractures [probably cast into the eye-bar during manufacturing] and over-loading. The disaster happened because there was no fail safe system.

Witnesses to the bridge disaster described 'a bridge collapsing like a deck of cards on a windy day'. The other bridge design examples have many eye-bar connections to fall back on incase of catastrophic failure. This bridge did not, and it was the designers choice.


Citigroup Centre, New York, USA [1978]
#Killed [seriously injured] - 0 [0]
Structural Engineering Designer - LeMessurier
Predicted Failure due to - Higher wind load than allowed for by designer. 

This building did not fail. It could have though - and was in danger of collapse.

An engineering student and a design engineer contacted the original designer, LeMessurier, to talk about certain design changes that occurred during construction, which would prove to have potentially serious effects on the strength of the braced steel connections.

The designer LeMessurier had not re-calculated all possible wind load combinations to test the theoretical model before construction was completed.

At first, it was said that LeMessurier was not overly concerned with the findings, as there was a certain level of redundancy by way of factors of safety inherent in the design. He was to later change his mind and contact the building owners about the engineering gaff.

The building was believed to be within hours of an emergency evacuation as Hurricane Ella slowly approached from Cape Hatteras.

LeMessurier managed to organise the retro modifications to the connections under cover and out of the public's eye. That was until 20 years later when the blunder was revealed to the world in the The New Yorker.


Hotel New World Disaster, Singapore [1978]
#Killed [seriously injured] - 33 [17]
Structural Engineering Designer - 'unable to locate'
Failure due to - Miscalculation of loads 

Apparently it took 60seconds for this 6-storey building to collapse, trapping 50 people, and killing 33. It still stands as Singapore's most serious civil disaster of all time.

The follow on investigations into why this building simply collapsed discovered that a great many blunders had occurred, and a substantial number of alterations had also been carried out to the building during it's life;

• In 1975, a bank added a vault weighing twenty-two tons on the ground floor.
• In 1978, the building owner added two additional cooling towers on the roof.
• In 1982 for architectural reasons, the building owner fixed heavy duty ceramic tiles on each exterior face on every floor weighing a total of fifty tons.
• In 1986 the owner installed an additional cooling tower on the roof.

All of the above extra loads were passed off as inconsequential compared to the actual reason why the design fell over. This failure represents probably the biggest engineering 'DOH!' of all time.

During the investigations, it was discovered that the original structural engineers had failed to account for any dead loads in the analysis. In effect the buildings own weight was missing from the calculations.

This error led to many similar high rise buildings being retro-fitted and strengthened due to engineering miscalculations in Singapore.

This the last of my #EpicFAILS sequence of blog posts. I hope you enjoyed reading them - and a special thank you goes out to all those who have taken the time comment too.

Again, these lists of failures are not meant to be exhaustive [have you got a few years?], nor were they meant to give you every last detail as to the reasons why failure occurred. I implore you, please take a look at the links provided and do your own research into them too. It follows that the more we learn about engineering failures, or failures during construction - the better we can prepare ourselves and help reduce the likelihood that we make similar mistakes as structural design engineers.

I will come back to these posts from time to time to refresh them as a result of new comments, and research.

Thanks again for reading, and please do not have nightmares.


Engine[er]

#EpicFAILS 3 [Structural Engineering]

"Engineers ... are not superhuman. They make mistakes in their assumptions, in their calculations, in their conclusions. That they make mistakes is forgiveable; that they catch them is imperative. Thus it is the essence of modern engineering not only to be able to check one's own work but also to have one's work checked and to be able to check the work of others." Henry Petroski

It can be said [I hope] that all of the engineering disasters spoke of in this blog thus far are of importance, and study of them will help us to understand further the historic and modern day pitfalls of structural design. They teach us many unique lessons about the potential problems within the design process, communication of design and the coveting of too much confidence in ones abilities. If we can take any lesson from the recent blog posts, that will be to expect the unexpected, and to seek help when you are plainly out of your depth - in an engineering capacity that is.

Fame or infamy are the natural by products of people, endeavours or instances in history which have meaning or can be defined by perhaps being the first to exhibit a particular behaviour or purpose [e.g. the tallest building]. By definition they stand-out, like a beacon of light, a celebration of being the best or a warning to all others to pay heed.

This week I'd like to speak of 3 engineering disasters which had historically defining effects upon our industry, they were failures which brought about very real changes to good design practice, building codes and the regulations which we all adhere to today.

To begin us off this week I would like to introduce you to the KING of building collapse case studies:


Ronan Point Building Collapse, London, UK [1968]
#Killed [injured] - 4 [17]
Contractor - Taylor Woodrow
Building System - Larsen-Nielson [large precast concrete panels]
This disaster has been very well covered in institution presentations, and research papers - all of which are obtainable from the IStructE website. It of course such an infamous structural disaster that it deserves a prominent place on our list of historic failures. The disproportional failure of this building is what set's it apart from all others.

The disaster was caused by a gas explosion, which occurred at the south east corner, on the 18th floor of this 22 storey block of flats. The disproportionate amount of damaged which then ensued, was enabled by the construction method used, and the level of workmanship involved [allegedly].

The method of construction, which was only initially intended to be made available to the construction of buildings less than or equal to 6 storeys in height, was chosen because confidence had grown in the system.

It was made abundantly clear by the high profile expert and structural engineer - Wilem Frischmann that this method of construction could be extremely dangerous for the inhabitants if such an event [like a gas explosion] were to take place. Wilem raised his concerns before the collapse in 1968.

As a direct result of the collapse and subsequent report [written by Wilem] that 9+ blocks of flats of similar construction, which contained a piped gas supply and were found NOT to be able to withstand a simulated 5psi explosion without a disproportionate amount of damage - were demolished.

Most importantly, a change in legislation and updating of Part A - of the building regulations occurred which detailed restrictions and amendments to deal with the issue of disproportionate collapse.


Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse, Washington, USA [1940]
#Killed [injured] - Tubby[the dog] [0]
Lead Structural Engineer- Leon Moisseiff
The Galloping Gertie. This has been an incredibly important case study ever since it's infamous failure. As a result of the collapse [which was famously captured on video] structural engineers the world over were forced to consider a whole new dynamic effect on the design of the bridge decks - aeroelastic flutter.

Again, as one would expect, there has been a great many industry and institutional presentations which have covered the reasons behind the failure of this both famous AND infamous bridge.

So why continue to regurgitate the same evidence? Well, apart from the aforementioned aeroelastic flutter, there was another very important lesson to be learned [or resurrected]. One which is has been repeated and threatens our self stylised position as chief protector of society, and practitioner of science for the benefit of mankind... and it goes a little something like this...

"The Tacoma Narrows bridge failure has given us invaluable information...It has shown [that] every new structure [that] projects into new fields of magnitude involves new problems for the solution of which neither theory nor practical experience furnish an adequate guide. It is then that we must rely largely on judgement and if, as a result, errors, or failures occur, we must accept them as a price for human progress" Othmar Ammann

Do we really?



Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Bombing, Oklahoma, USA [1995]
#Killed [injured] - 167 [782]
Construction Method - Insitu Concrete Frame and Shear Wall
Another saddening event which was influential in changing the way we as engineers design reinforced concrete buildings above 5 storeys, and the analysis of potential blast damage.

The A.P.Murrah Federal building was designed in the early 1970's, and a widely accepted theory for the trigger which caused the disproportional collapse of the 9 storey structure, was a terrorists home-made bomb, planted in a rental truck parked in-front of the building.

The blast resulted in a maximum 10,000 psi blast into the nearest structural column, all the way down to a minimum of 9 psi to the  upper west corner of the building.

The total of 4 columns collapsed due to the immediate blast loading, and resulted in the destruction of almost half of the floor area. Many lives were tragically lost.

Due to the effects of the upward direction of the blast wave, many of the adjacent floors were subjected to uplift. This was a load case not adequately catered for in the design and detailing of the reinforced concrete floors. Disproportionate collapse took care of the remaining upper floors.

This weeks stable of engineering disasters were once again aimed specifically at the art of structural engineering. None of the above case descriptions are meant to be extensive - a mere 'taste' of the event, with perhaps a personal opinion woven into them too.

The stand out feature of these disasters shown here on this post are to do with the journey into the unknown.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Longest spanning suspension bridge in the world when completed. Ronan point, over confidence in a new building system, pushed way past it's originally intended limits for storey heights. The A.P.Murrah Federal building. Long spanning reinforced insitu concrete moment frames, with little to no redundancy incase of explosive removal of essential structural support [in this case - 4 columns].

At the time, each example above pushed structural engineering further into the unknown. An invitation to unknown loading conditions, just waiting to jump up and give the engineer a wake-up call. Again, many lives lost as a result.

Have we learned enough? Only time will tell.

Next week we will have our final 3 #EpicFAILS. Until then, please do not have nightmares.


Engine[er]

When The Revolution Comes, Everything Will Be Beautiful

Our first guest post is an very interesting one, so without further ado I will let Dan introduce himself. Enjoy and please find time to comment!

Engine[er]

Guest post by Dan Engström. Adjunct Professor at Luleå University of Technology (www.ltu.se) and industrial researcher at NCC Engineering (www.ncc.se). Associate professor of architecture. Would have continued as a structural designer, but too many colleagues with actual talent realized the merits of indoor work without hard manual labour.

Change agents of the World, unite! We need to restructure our industry.

Looking around in our sector, it becomes clear to me that we are in trouble. We are not too far off the situation that the struggling – dying – traditional audiovisual industry is in. They are facing a paradigm shift in technology and client habits with existing business models. They are marketing products (discs) when clients increasingly are asking for services (streaming). The old business and organizational models in our industry are also put under such strain that we need to rethink the way we do business. I am not suggesting we throw everything out as if our mature industry were a greenfield to build a brave new world on. But I am arguing (as strenuously as I am able) that we need to develop and implement a new logic to our work. Sooner rather than later, we need to fundamentally change. Let’s call it our own version of Perestroika, the effort to restructuring of the stagnating Soviet Union. One major difference though. We need to succeed.

Let me motivate this rather startling call-to-arms with a look at my own hunting grounds – the Swedish housing industry. If the number of apartments built is the main indicator of the success of national and local politics in my country, the cost development of multi-storey housing has become the main indicator of the success of our construction industry. And maybe you’re already seeing where this is going.

Since the mid-80s, the number of apartments in one/two-family dwellings and in multi-storey buildings respectively has developed surprisingly similarly. This development seems to be changing. Now, roughly speaking, 7 out of 10 newly started apartments are located in multi-storey housing. According to Statistics Sweden, during the first nine months of 2011, construction of a total of 16,046 apartments were started in Sweden. This is down from the 18,570 apartments during the same time in 2010.

When it comes to the key metric, the cost development, how are we doing? It is not too far-fetched to use the Retailer Price Index (RPI) as an indicator of the purchasing power of our clients. Let’s map that against the Construction Price Index (CPI) of multi-storey housing over time. Let’s start in 1968, i.e. the early days of the major housing projects. A graph of these cost statistics is certainly not a pretty sight. Since the mid-90s, production costs have sky-rocketed compared to the purchasing power of our clients. 

 Part of the explanation is of course that the building codes require us to build with increasingly technical quality, so the graph in a way compares apples and pears. For example, during the time period in question, we have moved costs from the service-life (say heating) to the investment in production (better building envelopes). But having an explanation for the disparity does not help us. What matters is the gap between the the one graph, the one that indicates the funds available to clients, and the other one, the one that indicates what they can expect to pay for their apartment. Sometime soon, people will not be able to afford to buy apartments in the houses we build. Even the dip during the mid-90s had very little to do with our own development; it was due to a major recession when the government switched from subsidizing the housing market to making it their cash cow.

The striking graphical impact of the graph stands. We. Are. Failing. That is why we need Construction Perestroika. Sweden too has had our share of Latham Reports and Rethinking Construction reports. I now call for action, of the implementing of the findings in real business. The one main change that we need to make is simple to describe but very hard to pull off: changing from project-based logic to product-based logic. In my book, that’s our Perestroika in a nutshell. We need to stop giving clients wish-lists for every project and start preparing clients offers where that is possible. Develop systems-building. Learn from manufacturing, with concepts like Lean (focusing completely on client value), Mass customization (combining volume with client choice) and incremental improvement (articulating our methods and processes and letting hands-on workers decide how they should be improved). This involves keeping our value-chain together, built on interactive business trust, and making substantial investments in work between projects, which is something we normally just do not do.

We’ve developed building products in the small scale (like the sports hall we’ve developed at my company, see link below) but we have a whole sector to change; from the brief and contracts of clients to the design, production and supply-chain. It will be a very long haul to bring our existing structures to bear on these new ideas and new business. Imagine for example that we reengineer the revenue streams for professional services so that they reflect the value created for the clients. Clients seriously do not care how many hours we put in. Substituting metrics for real value for the time-sheet is logical, doable and necessary. But it affects our business to the core. Are we up to it? Arguably, the Perestroika of the Soviet Union brought out the hidden conflicts between the republics and made the union impossible to hold together. Like the audiovisual industry, clients will soon push on to Construction Perestroika – строительство перестройка for the flavour of it. When it takes off it will soon separate the early adopters that will survive and the hard-of-hearing ones that will not. If the old structures cannot adapt to new client requirements (read: “we’ve had it”) then new players will enter that can.

When The Revolution Comes, Everything Will Be Beautiful.

Dan Engström

Dan's [email]

Dan's [Blog]

Links and references:

·         Perestroika: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika

·         The number of apartments built over time: http://www.scb.se/Pages/TableAndChart____19985.aspx

·         The number of apartments built 2010 and 2011: http://www.scb.se/Pages/PressRelease____323744.aspx

·         Links to Swedish Housing Statistics in English: http://www.ssd.scb.se/databaser/makro/MainTable.asp?yp=tansss&xu=C9233001&omradekod=BO&omradetext=Housing+and+construction%26%239001%3B=2&langdb=2

·         Trash the time-sheet: role models: http://www.verasage.com/ and motives: http://iloapp.mickla.se/blog/change?Home&post=7

·         Building product sports hall: http://iloapp.mickla.se/blog/change?Home&post=8  

·         Systems-building: http://iloapp.mickla.se/blog/change?Home&post=10

·         When The Revolution Comes, Everything Will Be Beautiful: a powerful album by the United Sons of Toil from Madison, Wisconsin, available for the price you are willing to pay at http://music.unitedsonsoftoil.com/.

[Cartoon] Project Pan-handlers

Engine[er]

#EpicFAILS 2 [Structural Engineering]

If you keep watching the Twitter feed above for a few seconds then it will update with news of buildings which are collapsing all over the world.

Thanks to Twitter, we can't escape epic failures of a structural engineering kind on our weekends either.

Last Friday, we summarised the failures of one building, one bridge and one walkway [click here]. Each of them were caused by a very unique set of mistakes and miscommunications.

It is undeniable that all of the structural engineering disasters which are covered here in Starting up an Engine[er] were preventable. The offerings which I have for you this week though, they stand head and shoulders above all others for one incredulous reason. Both Engineers and Contractors gave fair warning of their imminent failure in their present condition, or if the proposed alterations were carried out. Scandalous.

With out further ado, let me introduce you to three delinquents from the world of structural failures.


The Sampoong Department Store collapse, South Korea [1995]
#Killed [injured] - 501 [937]
Building Chairman - Lee Joon [The Sampoong Group]
This disaster carries with it a very large casualty list indeed. Sadly, due to bribery and corruption, the ill-fated construction project was approved by city officials in 1989, and then promptly collapsed 5 years later after a series of alterations which hastened the buildings demise. In reality though, the fate of this 5 storey structure was set only a year into it's 2 year construction programme.

The original reinforced concrete framed 4 storey, yes - 4 storey building was built to be a block of offices. Part way through the construction though, the buildings intended use was changed to that of a department store, and this involved the cutting away of a number of supporting columns. The main contractor refused, and was kicked off the site as a result. Relevant retrospective structural checks must not have been carried out by an engineer.  The corrupt city officials approved the design changes, and the building opened in 1990 - attracting over 40k visitors per day, up until 1995.

Later in it's life the building, the owners planned to build a 5th floor, which would house 8 restaurants. This time a different main contractor refused to carry out the project on the grounds that it was far too dangerous, since they believed that the original building could not support yet another floor. They were sacked and another contractor was found to carry out the works.

To top this all off [quite literally] the roof mounted air conditioning units installed to service the new restaurants, as it turns out weighted 4 times the safe loading limit for the roof structure.

The combination of column removal, poor workmanship, overloading, plant vibration and the re-siting of the heavy roof plant lead to the eventual collapse of the Sampoong Department Store and the loss of 501 lives.

Lee Joon was sentenced to 10.5 years in jail for criminal negligence and the President of the Sampoong Group at the time faced 7 years for accidental homicide and corruption. ALSO a number of city officials were jailed for corruption, due to accepting brides, concealing illegal changes and poor construction.


The Quebec Bridge Collapse, Quebec City, Canada [1907]

#Killed [injured] - 75 [11]
Structural Engineer - Norman McLure and Theodore Cooper
Bridge Contractors - Phoenix Bridge Company

This disaster is still considered the worst bridge construction accident of all time. It appears that after it was decided to extend the cantilever section of the the bridge, relevant checks were not made to the design calculations. Later, it was found that the structure was incapable of carrying the additional dead weight during the construction phase of the project.

When the cantilever section started to show signs of distortion, the local engineering team lead by McLure from their head offices, and supervised by Cooper, became worried and communicated their fears to the project team. At first Cooper denied that the problems were serious, but McLure had a hunch that the warnings were not being taken seriously enough. The construction company were approached and Phoenix protested that the beams were bent when they got them.

Eventually Cooper relented and telegraphed the Phoenix Bridge Company "add no more load to bridge til due consideration of the facts" and both engineers travelled to the contractors offices to confront them.

The telegraph was never passed on, and later that afternoon, the cantilevered section of the bridge collapsed into the St. Lawrence River, claiming 86 victims. 75 of those perished.


The I-35W Mississippi River Bridge Disaster, Minnesota, United States [2007]

#Killed [injured] - 13 [145]
Structural Engineer - Jacobs Engineering [Sverdrup & Parcel]
Safety Inspectors / Analysis - URS Corporation

The collapse of the I-35W Mississippi Bridge was predicted by the computer analysis of the bridge before the event - by the URS Corporation. The bridge was scheduled for replacement in 2020 and temporary reinforcement right up until the last few months of it's life.

Unfortunately the engineers report, even though stating the bridge to be 'structurally deficient' for modern day loadings [which happens to be overloaded by 20% - between 2007 and the year of it's construction in 1964], critically the report also concluded that the bridge had met with minimum tolerable limits. This conclusion pushed the scheduled reinforcement back in lieu of periodic safety inspections, and eventually set the scene for a catastrophic collapse during rush hour one morning in August.

After a long investigation, the design was eventually found to be flawed, and law suits were raised against the design engineers and the engineers responsible for the safety inspections and analysis.

This represents another horrible example of us engineers not being able to communicate our fears with enough gusto to help prevent potential disasters.

I mentioned in a past post that I had stopped work on an entire building project due to a 'gut feeling' that I had. I was still an assistant engineer at the time, and responsible for the engineering works to a 4 storey load bearing masonry shop, in a busy market town in Norfolk.

A large number of walls and tying floors had been earmarked for removal, to make possible a giant conversion of the upper 3 floors above a supermarket into 'upmarket' flats. The senior engineer and I had spent a lot of time working through how to phase the demolition and reconstruction of the walls and floors, and therefore retaining enough of the structure to prevent instability during construction.

We issued our instructions along with the engineering drawings and calculations. A few months along into the demolition process, the builders were falling behind programme and stepped up their efforts. This included a decision to depart away from our engineering method statement.

I turned up on site our of the blue [just passing by], and whilst I stood amongst the masses amounts of construction workers busily going about their business, I reviewed the gaping holes where the walls once stood, and started to feel sick. I quickly informed the site manager to stop work and contacted the engineering director. We eventually had to survey the whole building and formulate a new plan to progress the works.

It was a sunny Friday afternoon, next to the coast. The shop car-park was full and there were atleast 100 workers on site that day.

Next week I will continue the theme and summarise my thoughts on 3 more engineering disasters.

If you have spotted any engineering project which is suspiciously lack lustre or feel under pressure not to spend enough time on a project which deserves it, then please follow this link to the CROSS and SCROSS structural safety website. There you will find advice on how to report your findings.

Please don't have night-mares.


Engine[er]