It doesn't have to be stressful...

by Davis Veidemanis

The most stressful times in my career as a Consulting Structural Engineer have been…

…when dealing with steel connections.

Why is that?

For a “regular” building in the UK, connections are straightforward. Put some shears on the drawing and issue it out to the Steel Contractor.

The buildings I’ve dealt with were rarely like that. There were always at least a couple of tricky joints that needed careful thought – I don’t think I was alone there…

As an Engineer, I was used to being in total control of my designs. However, I wasn’t the one who’d perform the detailed connection design!

I’d be less likely to have in-depth knowledge that a Steel Contractor has. I’d be at the mercy of whatever information I had submitted at Tender, with the following worries in my mind:

• What if the intent I’d provided didn’t work with the given loads? Because I hadn’t considered stuff like bolt and weld force distribution due to plate stiffness. Or didn't think about the possibility of a buckling failure or the impact of prying forces?
• What if the moment connections I’d outlined were not stiff enough?
• What if the connection was not buildable or required strengthening? I'd mess up the entire MEP/Arch coordination and then get the nail-biting call from the Quantity Surveyor.
• What if I missed extra stiffeners I hadn’t communicated in my notes, or didn’t even realize they would be needed?
• What if I missed stresses generated by the construction method I’d proposed?

Yikes!

If I had the right tools to carry out checks on critical joints at Stage 4, I would’ve had less sleepless nights…

Maybe that’s the reason I joined IDEA StatiCa at the start of the year – to get over my fears.

Maybe it was to tell other Engineers like me - there’s another way to go about things and know 100% that your connection intent will be all right.

IDEA StatiCa UK is a way.

#ideastatica #steel #connections #structuralengineering