The task of quickly producing preliminary and detailed structural schemes which are safe and economic requires an experienced Engineer. It has always been the case that speed is of the essence in such a competitive market as the construction industry and any tools that the Engineer can utilise can only be to his benefit.

The Engineer will use his past experience and knowledge of structural behaviour and design to produce structural schemes. Some of the early scheme information will use the Engineers past experience and in some cases simple rules of thumb or simple calculations. Most of the early calculations will involve simple, easy to use analytical techniques, including Rule of Thumb methods. Often though the structure is too complex to use such methods, or perhaps the Engineer does not know of a simple yet accurate preliminary design method for this particular structure.

The detailed analysis and design presently utilises software which is often operated by junior Engineers or technicians. The output from this work requires checking in some way to ensure the analysis / design is correct. Sometimes it is possible to use simple calculations to obtain an approximate view of the structures overall behaviour and thus check the design. Also it is possible to use simple Rules of Thumb to do the same job.

But collecting large numbers of these simple calculations or rules is difficult. Many Engineers have developed these themselves or have collected these quick design aids over many years of working in different offices on a variety of structures and using different materials. Other aspects of the analysis / design also require checking and typically cover aspects such as, correct modelling of the structure, sign conventions, support conditions, load type and direction, correct joint type / action etc.

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