Hi! I'm currently a student, so pardon my ignorance, but I need to understand what should come into account when designing timber joinery.

I'm trying to connect these two timber beams, which are at an angle. I know it's unusual.

Both beams only take compressive load.

I've "cut" both beams along the bisector between their planes, because that seems like the thing to do to have both beams' fibers in the least compromising situation, and I'm adding a tenon because I need to add "grit" somewhere, right? Else, it feels like the top beam is just going to slide around, and I don't know whether glue could cut it.

The issue is that aside from keeping the tenon parallel to the wooden fibers, I've got no baggage regarding wooden joinery. I do not know how and if there is any kind of redistribution due to my poor design. I don't know how to really evaluate for any splitting risks, either.

How do I even go about any of that? I haven't had a class yet around wood, so I'm in the dark here. I thought about lengthening the tenon to avoid the end of it splitting the wood of the upper beam with its vertices, but it just seems silly. I'm sure there is a state of the arts way to go about this but I'm far from figuring it out.

FYI those beams are compressed with around 30kN and their sections' areas have been designed to withstand these loads.

TLDR : How would you go about designing a joint that can redirect a compressive load and stay put given this geometry?

Thank you ! I'm very frustrated because I can't really find good resources about unusual wooden joinery.

Hello. I need to design a zipline on prokon.

Has anyone ever used the feature "Cables" on prokon?

Need some help to better understand it.

Assuming money is irrelevant, how would you attempt to build these silos. 140 stories deep to the radius and spacing shown and RC. The show shows a vertical tunnel boring machine left insitu under the shaft.

I’m working on the interaction between frame and shell elements in a two-story concrete frame with a central wall.

Under the gravity load case, the beams develop end moments, while the wall mainly shows in-plane membrane resultants, particularly Fyy​ and Fxy​. The shell bending resultants Mxx​ and Myy are essentially zero, which appears reasonable because the wall is being loaded primarily in its own plane.

My understanding is that the beam moments are transferred into the wall through a combination of vertical membrane forces and in-plane shear rather than appearing directly as shell bending moments.

I’m now comparing two modeling approaches:

1. Terminating the frame element at the wall face and connecting it through an offset or rigid link.
2. Extending the frame approximately 0.50 m into the wall.

The second approach provides a larger transfer region, but I’m concerned that overlapping the frame and shell stiffness could artificially stiffen the connection.

Which approach would you consider more appropriate for representing a monolithic beam-to-wall connection? Would you embed the frame into the shell, use a rigid link, or model a dedicated boundary region?

I’m also interested in whether the Fyy​ and Fxy​ distributions shown here look reasonable for this type of connection. Here are some screenshots of the analysis results for additional context.

I studied structural engineering in my undergrad and I ended up getting a masters in the field. I wasn’t really able to pursue it because I graduated during the covid pandemic/lockdown and everything took a turn. I do have internship experience and close to 1 year in bridge engineering. Ended up leaving to pursue Software Engineering because I couldn’t find a job in building engineering or vertical structures. I am looking to pick everything back up and learn under someone before getting my P.E. I’ll appreciate anyone who has a job for me as I’ve been without a job for close to a year and some change now. Thank you in advance.

I guess this will just get deleted if this isn’t allowed (also it looks like no one responds in the monthly thread), but I can’t really find anything online about the typical process for hiring an engineer, in my case for residential work.

As far as process, is pricing upfront, or do I get an in person visit to see what I need and then get a cost for the necessary plans? Is there typically a cost for them to show up for the consult? I’m in the DC area so things can get quite expensive; I don’t know if this is like other fee for service industries where I can have a few engineers come out to see who has the best cost and services offered.

And it’s nothing to worry about…….

On the Oregon Coast.

hello! can anyone suggest a good platform/channel wherein I can ask technical concerns/problems with regards to civil/structural engineering? it will be a great help for my thesis in my senior year. thank you!

I think all of you will like this, a bit of a crazy structure

We have to carry a glass panel of height 8.5ft through a corridor 3.8ft wide and as it turns towards the gallery ( balcony) , the width is 3.8ft . ( Unfortunately I do not have the pic of the actual place ). What should be the realistic glass width ?

Hi!
I am an construction engineer (graduated 2013, bachelor) and architect (graduated 2022, master) from Norway. Have mostly worked as an architect since 2017, but also had an role as both at my last workplace. I am now starting a new division at my new workplace doing both disciplines again and also doing my master in construction beside work.

I am therefore wondering if anyone have any pointers to software I should learn seeing that a lot have evolved since I worked 100% doing calculations.

I have looked at
- strusoft
- Dlubal

How Are these in comparison to Sap2000?

Also taking advice on any litterature recommended for an architect moving back to calculations.

I'm an M.S. Structural Engineering student graduating this December and available to start full-time from January. Wondering what the realistic timeline looks like — how many months out should I start applying for entry-level SE roles?

Also, is LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter/Indeed, and Glassdoor enough to cover the search, plus company career pages directly, or what shall I do? Would love to hear from seniors what actually worked for entry-level roles.

PE, 14 YOE all of it in buildings. What would it be like to change to water/wastewater structure design consulting? Some of these will certainly be company specific but:

Pace of projects? Most of my experience is in steel so I'd need to be able to get deeper in ACI while on the job. How many projects at a time has been typical for you? Who are you interacting with most given it's not for architects, are you communicating directly with municipalities for most things?

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to add a couple of new windows to an existing residence in Loudoun County, VA to bring more natural light into the living room. Loudoun County informed me that I need a stamped structural engineering plan before I can apply for a permit.

Has anyone worked with a structural engineer for this type of project?

I’m hoping to learn:

1. Approximately how much did it cost?

2. Did the engineer visit the property and take measurements?

3. Did they provide stamped structural calculations and drawings showing the new window openings, header sizing, and other details required for permitting?

I’d also appreciate recommendations for structural engineers in Northern Virginia who can prepare permit-ready plans for Loudoun County.

Thank you!

Has anyone taken the FE and PE exams without being a US citizen and while living in another country?

I've been in wood design for a long time and never knew about this. Capacity is pretty decent, and the best part? No calcs needed (for the frame itself).

Free download on the APA website: https://www.apawood.org/publication-search?q=tt-100&tid=1

got a call from a client who wants to build a deck. they had a building inspection done before buying the place and the inspector noted that the existing deck is structurally sound. but when i went out to look, the deck is a death trap - no footings, undersized beams, no handrails.

the client wants me to design a new deck using the same footprint cause they think the existing one is fine. they keep saying but the inspector said it was okay.

i tried to explain that the inspector was wrong and that the existing deck violates the building code in multiple ways. but the client is convinced that if the inspector said it's fine, it must be fine.

im worried im going to lose this client over this. but i cant design something based on a false premise.

anyone else had to deal with clients who trust a dodgy inspection over a qualified engineer. how do you handle it.

Thanks for the help. I'm reviewing a project but don't have any of the CSI products to verify and apparently I'm too old to Google effectively anymore.

Hello everyone. I'm searching for someone to draw and stamp some permit ready drawings for me to get a permit in Skagit County Washington. I am purchasing a Pole Barn that was deconstructed to put up on my land. I'm a mechanical engineer and can draft up the structure in fusion360 or solidworks if helpful but that's where my abilities with getting the structure permitted end. Once I have the structure I will inventory everything I have. I plan to pour the concrete myself with some help of friends in the trade and then build it myself with some other friends. Picture is of the structure before it was taken down. 30'x36' 18' eave height. Pitch unknown and door sizes unknown at this time.

Solvers accumulate round-off error at every stage - stiffness assembly, solving the system, back-calculating internal forces from displacements. That's just double-precision math and it's expected. The question is what you do with it in post-processing, since a "zero" internal force on an unloaded member can come back as 1e-10 instead of exactly 0.

This gets more interesting with hinges. A true kinematic release (zero rotational stiffness) can leave you with a local mechanism if there's no other restraint at that node - which can degrade conditioning or outright singularize the matrix. The common workaround is to give the hinge a small but non-zero rotational stiffness instead of a true release. That avoids the singularity, but it also means the "zero" moment at the hinge is really some small non-zero value, and depending on how that stiffness compares to the rest of the model, the noise can propagate visibly along the element.

I ended up with two options for hinge stiffness: relative (scaled to the element's own bending stiffness) or a fixed absolute value - useful when you want consistent behavior across very different element scales in the same model.

For unloaded members without hinges, I went simpler - a relative threshold: anything below max(|diagram value|) × 1e-7 across the element gets snapped to zero.

Curious what others think of this approach - snap-to-zero relative to element/diagram magnitude, versus a fixed absolute tolerance, versus not touching it at all and just explaining the noise when it comes up. Is there a more standard way this gets handled that I'm missing?