Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering in which structural engineers are trained to design the 'bones and joints' that create the form and shape of human-made structures. Structural engineers also must understand and calculate the stability, strength, rigidity and earthquake-susceptibility of built structures for buildings and nonbuilding structures. The structural designs are integrated with those of other designers such as architects and building services engineer and often supervise the construction of projects by contractors on site. They can also be involved in the design of machinery, medical equipment, and vehicles where structural integrity affects functioning and safety. See glossary of structural engineering.
Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ductility. The reinforcement is usually, though not necessarily, steel bars (rebar) and is usually embedded passively in the concrete before the concrete sets. However, post-tensioning is also employed as a technique to reinforce the concrete. In terms of volume used annually, it is one of the most common engineering materials. In corrosion engineering terms, when designed correctly, the alkalinity of the concrete protects the steel rebar from corrosion.
Solid mechanics is the branch of continuum mechanics that studies the behavior of solid materials, especially their motion and deformation under the action of forces, temperature changes, phase changes, and other external or internal agents.
In structural engineering, a shear wall is a two-dimensional vertical element of a system that is designed to resist in-plane lateral forces, typically wind and seismic loads.
Seismic analysis is a subset of structural analysis and is the calculation of the response of a building structure to earthquakes. It is part of the process of structural design, earthquake engineering or structural assessment and retrofit in regions where earthquakes are prevalent.
Earthquake engineering is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that designs and analyzes structures, such as buildings and bridges, with earthquakes in mind. Its overall goal is to make such structures more resistant to earthquakes. An earthquake engineer aims to construct structures that will not be damaged in minor shaking and will avoid serious damage or collapse in a major earthquake. A properly engineered structure does not necessarily have to be extremely strong or expensive. It has to be properly designed to withstand the seismic effects while sustaining an acceptable level of damage.
This is an alphabetical list of articles pertaining specifically to structural engineering. For a broad overview of engineering, please see List of engineering topics. For biographies please see List of engineers.
A steel plate shear wall (SPSW) consists of steel infill plates bounded by boundary elements.
Voided biaxial slabs, sometimes called biaxial slabs or voided slabs, are a type of reinforced concrete slab which incorporates air-filled voids to reduce the volume of concrete required. These voids enable cheaper construction and less environmental impact. Another major benefit of the system is its reduction in slab weight compared with regular solid decks. Up to 50% of the slab volume may be removed in voids, resulting in less load on structural members. This also allows increased weight and/or span, since the self-weight of the slab contributes less to the overall load.
The history of structural engineering dates back to at least 2700 BC when the step pyramid for Pharaoh Djoser was built by Imhotep, the first architect in history known by name. Pyramids were the most common major structures built by ancient civilizations because it is a structural form which is inherently stable and can be almost infinitely scaled.
A T-beam, used in construction, is a load-bearing structure of reinforced concrete, wood or metal, with a T-shaped cross section. The top of the T-shaped cross section serves as a flange or compression member in resisting compressive stresses. The web of the beam below the compression flange serves to resist shear stress. When used for highway bridges the beam incorporates reinforcing bars in the bottom of the beam to resist the tensile stresses which occur during bending.
The Bridge Software Institute is headquartered at the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, Florida. It was established in January 2000 to oversee the development of bridge related software products at UF. Today, Bridge Software Institute products are used by engineers nationwide, both in state Departments of Transportation and leading private consulting firms. Bridge Software Institute software is also used for the analysis of bridges in various countries by engineers around the world.
The applied element method (AEM) is a numerical analysis used in predicting the continuum and discrete behavior of structures. The modeling method in AEM adopts the concept of discrete cracking allowing it to automatically track structural collapse behavior passing through all stages of loading: elastic, crack initiation and propagation in tension-weak materials, reinforcement yield, element separation, element contact and collision, as well as collision with the ground and adjacent structures.
VisualFEA is a finite element analysis software program for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It is developed and distributed by Intuition Software, Inc. of South Korea, and used chiefly for structural and geotechnical analysis. Its strongest point is its intuitive, user-friendly design based on graphical pre- and postprocessing capabilities. It has educational features for teaching and learning structural mechanics, and finite element analysis through graphical simulation. It is widely used in college-level courses related to structural mechanics and finite element methods.
Mete Avni Sözen was Kettelhut Distinguished Professor of Structural Engineering at Purdue University, Indiana, United States from 1992 to 2018.
Arching or compressive membrane action (CMA) in reinforced concrete slabs occurs as a result of the great difference between the tensile and compressive strength of concrete. Cracking of the concrete causes a migration of the neutral axis which is accompanied by in-plane expansion of the slab at its boundaries. If this natural tendency to expand is restrained, the development of arching action enhances the strength of the slab. The term arching action is normally used to describe the arching phenomenon in one-way spanning slabs and compressive membrane action is normally used to describe the arching phenomenon in two-way spanning slabs.
Kolbjørn Saether P.E., M.ASCE was an American structural engineer in the City of Chicago for 47 years. Saether dedicated his life to engineering and was known as a leader in his field. He was a past director of the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois and was the organization's president from 1980 to 1981. During his career he developed innovative engineering solutions for skyrise building construction that are now part of the Chicago skyline, published theoretical insights to enhance the state of the art in structural engineering, and patented novel techniques to advance the art of building construction.
Medhat Haroun was an Egyptian-American expert on earthquake engineering. He wrote more than 300 technical papers and received the Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award (2006) and the Walter Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (1992) from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Gundabathula Venkateswara Rao is an Indian materials engineer, known for his studies in the field of Structural mechanics. Focusing his researches on Finite element method, Structural analysis and Smart materials, he and his colleagues developed FEAST, a medium-sized program for laboratory research and industrial applications including design and analysis of rocket systems. An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science from where he secured a PhD, his researches have been documented in several peer-reviewed articles and his work has been cited by several scientists. Google Scholar, an online article repository of scientific articles, has listed a number of his articles. The Indian Academy of Sciences elected him as a fellow in 2003. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Engineering Sciences in 1989.
Magd Abdel Wahab is a Belgian academic, researcher, author and Imam of Islam. He is full professor and chair of applied mechanics at Ghent University, Belgium, where he is also the Head of Finite Element Modelling Research Group of Laboratory Soete.
