The Structural Engineering Kit: Must Have Tools

General Notes typically talk about the materials and the responsibilities the Contractor has to go by. All the design codes and criteria are also specified in this section, along with the Geo-Technical Information. The main concept of all of this is to inform you of the strength of the soil, water level, and the recommendation for the foundation. The General notes also talk about the instructions the contractors should follow. The materials have to be very specific and a list of all the delegated items is also on this General Notes page. The Delegated items are basically everything the structure doesn’t require these could be fences, stairs, railings, and all the other miscellaneous metals. The Plan views are a depending on the structure and the floors it has. There’s a foundation plan and a plan is included per each floor until we reach the Roof Framing Plan. The Schedule sheets are more or less the index to the plans it explains what each code means. Throughout the plan, it’s more convenient to put certain codes to explain parts of the structural design and in this schedule sheet, it has all the classifications with the explanation for each of them. The Sections of the plan are shown in the aspect of the structure being cut in half and explaining exactly what the inside of each side looks like for a structural point of view. The Details are a zoomed in version into the small details like connections, these could be concrete or steel. There are general details and then specific details, and The Elevation is the outside perspective of the building for each of the sides. The second portion of the General plans are the calculations. We use Etabs when we calculate new construction. The Calculations of the structural general plans are what summarizes the structural members for the intent loading, these could be typical or environmental. Some of the programs being used today by engineers are AutoCAD, Risa-3D, Etabs, and Revit. The most common is definitely AutoCAD as it has been around since December 1982. Since then a lot of different software’s have been developed to emphasize certain areas. Eastern Engineering Group has kept up with all the innovative technological updates that have been created for Structural Engineering. Currently, we use Etabs and Risa-3D for most of our calculations but we are slowly progressing to Revit to minimize the time and effort it would take to draft certain structures.