Structural Engineering Loads Explained

A few years back, my group of engineers got a question from the shop floor: "We're seeing the conduits from the ceiling snaking back and forth a lot, is the roof okay?" This was amid some of the...

While the underlying equations governing structural mechanics may be complex, they can be made much more manageable with a few simplifying assumptions. Most introductory "mechanics of materials"...

Traditionally, individual pieces of wood were assigned qualitative ratings by expert "visual graders", based solely on the outward visual appearance. As a piece of wood gets bigger, the chance of a...

Many engineering materials suffer from decreased mechanical properties at elevated temperatures. Aside from the obvious melting problem, even metals that don't rely on heat-treatment processes often...

Wood, like soil, is able to hold varying amounts of moisture within its porous structure. Also like soil, the mechanical properties of wood vary based on the moisture content. Totally separate...

Unlike almost every other engineering material, the strength of a wood structural member depends on the total duration that the member is subjected to the peak expected load. The implications of...