Happy Wednesday, šš Today, weāre kicking off the biggest series yet - the reinforced concrete series. The next weeks and months will be packed with structural engineering value. For this knowledge, people pay hundreds of dollars for to learn in university classes and seminars. But itās going to be completely free for you in this newsletter. Those of you who have been around for some time understand now how we structured the content of the last months. We have built up our knowledge of...
6 days agoĀ ā¢Ā 2 min read
Hello and happy Wednesday, Today, weāll quickly introduce the main concrete and reinforcement properties we use to design reinforced concrete beams like the compression strength of concrete, partial safety factors and tensile strength of reinforcement. These material properties are the fundamentals of structural design. In this article, weāll explain what properties are important, where we find them and how to calculate them (if needed). So, letās get into it. The 5 Most Important Concrete...
6 days agoĀ ā¢Ā 4 min read
Hi friends, We have come to the last episode of the Reinforced Concrete Series. Today, is episode #26. Next week, we'll summarize what we've learned and covered in these #26 episodes. It's crazy how far we've come - How much practical hands-on knowledge we have learned. This wasn't some theory bloaded-series that you won't need as an engineer. We covered real world engineering examples that structural engineers encounter in their projects. This was far more information than what I ever...
9 days agoĀ ā¢Ā 4 min read
Happy Sunday fam! Hope you are having a fantastic weekend. I am currently in Copenhagen visiting some friends. I published my first ever vlog on YouTube where I show you behind the scenes of Structural Basics and my life. You can watch it ā here ā In episode #8 of the Structural Basics series, I bring you along a week in my life as a structural engineer. I show you: my morning and evening routine thoughts on structural engineering and projects how I create content for Structural Basics (blog...
12 days agoĀ ā¢Ā 1 min read
Hi friends, Last week we covered how to distribute horizontal loads through a reinforced concrete slab and to shear walls. But we didn't cover how to verify that the slab can actually resist these loads. That's what we cover today: Design and verification of reinforced concrete slabs for horizontal loads. Some of you might be wondering: Do I really have to verify reinforced concrete slabs for horizontal loads? The answer is Yes and No. It really depends on the structure whether the floor...
23 days agoĀ ā¢Ā 7 min read
Hi friends, Today, we'll talk about how horizontal loads that act on the slabs of buildings are distributed through the reinforced concrete slabs to the shear walls. But first, I want to share some exciting news. We have now sold over 100 e-books of Loads on Residential Buildings and what makes me really proud - the feedback has been amazing. The book is now even available in Macedonian. How crazy is that? Prof. Dr. sc. Sergey Churilov reached out and asked me if I allow him to translate it...
30 days agoĀ ā¢Ā 8 min read
Hello and happy Wednesday, šš Concrete has a great compression capacity. Its tensile capacity, however, is very low. Thatās the reason why reinforcement is added to most concrete elements. In most cases, itās not the concrete compression strength thatās critical, but the tensile strength of the reinforcement. There are, however, a few design situations where the compression stress can be become greater than the compression capacity. In this newsletter, Iāll show you examples of critical...
about 1 month agoĀ ā¢Ā 5 min read
Welcome back, Bending is the verification I do the most when I design reinforced concrete elements. You need to verify bending when you design beams, slabs, frames, foundation beams, pad and strip footings and many more structural elements. Concrete is great in compression but very weak in tension. The steel reinforcement is added to take up the tension forces. The bending moment of a rc cross-section is split up in a compression and a tension component, where the compression component is a...
about 1 month agoĀ ā¢Ā 3 min read
Hello friends, The title āshear verification without shear reinforcementā is a bit weird, isnāt it? How do you verify shear without having shear reinforcement? Let me explain. In general for beams I would always use shear reinforcement like stirrups, but there are other elements where itās either hard to fit stirrups in - like 200mm thick slabs. Or there it just also verifies without shear reinforcement. Today, weāll check out how we can make reinforced concrete work without having shear...
about 1 month agoĀ ā¢Ā 4 min read