This is an excerpt from “Back of the Envelope” — where I teach you SE-related things in 5 minutes (or less), once a week. If you enjoyed it after reading it, subscribe at the end of the post to be one of the first to get new emails every Thursday. Today, I am going to […]
Recap: Town hall meetings for structural engineers
This is an excerpt from “Back of the Envelope” — where I share interesting, SE-related things I learned recently (in 5 minutes or less). If you enjoyed reading it, subscribe at the end of the post to be one of the first to get new emails (every Thursday). Today, I will talk about a webcast […]
Site Walls and Earthquake
This is the first article that I sent out on “Back of the Envelope” — where I teach you SE-related things in 5 minutes (or less), once a week. If after reading it and you kind of liked it, subscribe at the end of the post to be one of the first to get new […]
Geometric Growth of a Structural Engineering Firm
What Is This About? So I decided to change it up a little and write about some of my other passions: …business, sales, and marketing of engineering firms. Whether you are an owner/part-owner/employee of a firm, this is something that you’ll find applicable because knowing how to market and sell your engineering service is absolutely […]
Steel: Required Strength vs. Nominal Strength vs. Allowable Strength vs. Design Strength
Steel is actually one of my favorite structural materials. For some reason, the design outlined by AISC just seems much more straightforward compared to other materials (e.g. concrete). Perhaps I just had a really good professor in college… (thanks Professor Uang!) Anyways, if you are planning to take the PE or the SE but have […]
PPI Discount/Promo Code
If you are interested in getting the Structural Engineering Reference Manual and/or the 16-Hour SE Practice Exam for Buildings (both published by PPI), I got some good news.
Wood Design Shortcut – Beam Stability Factor (and Column Stability Factor)
Introduction If you have studied or have done some wood design, you certainly have came across the “beam stability factor”. It looks something like this ((NDS Equation 3.3–6): Now, I am not going to go into details about all the variables; I mainly just wanted to talk about the final CL factor. As you already […]
Three “Seismic Design Requirements” Flow Charts: The Quickest & Easiest Way To Learn The Design Values In “ASCE 7 Chapter 11 & 12”
While studying the ASCE 7 Chapter 11 & 12, do you frequently get lost in its”wall of text“? No problem, we are here to help! Ian has created and shared three very valuable flow charts (you can download them below). By following along while studying, you will gain a much better understanding of many of the seismic design requirements […]
13 Things You Need to Know About “Seismic Design Criteria” (ASCE 7 Chapter 11)
Since I’ve been practicing structural engineering in California, I’ve kind of taken my experience with seismic design for granted. Not only it’s something that we do nearly every single day, it’s also required in order to get the PE license (CA has an additional 4-hour seismic portion on top of the regular NCEES 8-hour exam for the PE […]
How to Spend “Less Time” Studying for the PE Exam
Most of you visiting this site are probably in the process of preparing for the SE exam. However, some of you may have stumbled here because you are taking the PE exam with “Civil-Structural” focus.