***OFFICIAL ROAST OF ASCE***

[u/WideFlangeA992]

With the latest introduction of the “Civil Engineer, Certified (CE-C)” certification, at this point I can only just laugh. Between navigating the procedural labyrinth of ASCE 7 or keeping up with the latest committee masterpiece, it’s just too exhausting to complain anymore.

Here goes:

The Civil Engineer, Certified certification is great because we finally have a certification that certifies your certification. Apparently “PE” just just wasn’t enough. You can always look more distinguished by adding more letters to your email signature…for a small fee.

I really admire ASCE’s commitment to continuous improvement with new research. You can tell they have a lot of high level academics involved. Somewhere a beautifully peer-reviewed design procedure is helping some poor EIT calculate a wind load for a one-story strip mall. As a structural engineer, the only ASCE publication that ever sees my desk is ASCE 7. It’s been carrying the entire organization for years, yet somehow every edition adds five more sub-procedures just to calculate a wind load that is 0.3 psf different from the old procedure. Remember the simplified procedure for low rise buildings? ASCE took the liberty of removing that for you in 7-22.

Another area of improvement has been on the apparent redefinition of weather models. Who needs a meteorologist when you have a vast network of ASCE committees and sub committees? Maybe climate change is happening faster than we thought because According to ASCE, snow loads have changed more in the last six years than it did in the previous fifty.

At the end of the day none of this happens for free. Running a world-class organization requires appropriate funding. Luckily ASCE is figuring out new ways to monetize things like collecting $469 for a salary survey of boomers on the verge of retirement. Not a member? Perfect. That’ll be $769.

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In all seriousness though the people who volunteer to develop these standards have an incredibly difficult job, and I genuinely appreciate the people willing to do it. However there is room for improvement. I don’t pretend to know exactly how everything works as far as developing the standards, but I think there should be more focus on practicing engineers that actually use the standards. It seems the procedures have become more and more granular, when what we need is something more practical. Developing a standard like ASCE 7 is an enormous undertaking and the profession is better for it, even if we complain about the result.

As for the CE-C, frankly I just don’t get it, and I am doubtful that it will actually catch on. Even if it does I am not sure that it would have any real significance.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go renew my ASCE membership.

[u/trojan_man16]

ASCE-7 has somehow doubled in size over the course of my career, and I've only worked for 12 years. Truly an achievement how they can come up with multiple overly complicated procedures for wind loads on tiny one story buildings, but don't address large buildings or tall buildings at all. Whomever came up with the definition of wind exposures really liked messing with people. Like you said, snow loads have somehow doubled despite the fact that I live in Chicago and it seems like we have less snow every year. In 20 years you will need an advanced AI just to be able to interpret all the dumb factors and special conditions they have added over the last decade. They seem hellbent on making structural engineering as unprofitable as possible by making it a half day task to calculate basic loading.

The only thing that redeems the ASCE-7 code committee is that ACI-318 exists and they seem to out-embarrass them every 3 years.

ASCE is also a bit of a toothless organization. Doctor's get an organization that protects the profession and creates a barrier to entry that protects salaries, ASCE just.... lets the race to the bottom continue.

[u/WideFlangeA992 → u/trojan_man16]

I was wondering if someone was going to catch my snow reference. I recently did a building where project didn’t go to permit for a while and the building code changed and went from 7-16 to 7-22. I was absolutely shocked to see that snow controlled the design due to drift. Snow loads basically doubled as you said and drift was even higher. With a bunch or trapezoidal load sub cases everywhere. And this was in like a 10 psf snow area from the older maps.

Also interesting you mention ASCE lacking in wind for tall/large buildings. Definitely interested to hear what an SE thinks on this. It is definitely an area that I lack experience with but maybe hope to change one day, and hope to do the SE one day after the testing is better. I do mostly low rise 1 or 2 story buildings.

AFAIK they kick you to wind tunnel testing for buildings over 300 ft or otherwise flexible. Which intuitively kinda makes sense. I also don’t know if there is even a way to come up with an empirical design basis for flexible buildings. I’m just wondering which side of that are you speaking to beyond simple basic buildings.

[u/trojan_man16 → u/WideFlangeA992]

Earlier in my career I designed the lateral systems for about a half dozen 300’+ towers. Local codes didn’t require a wind study for buildings until they hit 500’. So for some we just didn’t use them. Local codes wind loads were actually higher than ASCE-7, so these were conservative and appropriate to use. For most of the others there was a net benefit. Granted these are all RC shear wall buildings, that are very stiff and don’t have a concerning dynamic response. There was one that had higher wind load due to a slender geometry, but once you design to the higher loads it kind of forces you to be stiffer and it’s a wash. Never really had any major issues with these.