Maps!

I am a member of CoreNet Global, specifically the Northern California Chapter.  It is the world’s leading professional association for corporate real estate (CRE) and workplace executives.  I like Corenet because their membership consists of high level CRE people and companies as well as Service Providers like architects and other consultants.  The Northern California Chapter is one of the largest chapters in the world.

CoreNet is really good about sending out real estate reports and market indicator reports to their members on a regular basis.  These reports are sometimes available other places on the web and sometimes not, but either way, they do a great job of aggregating important information on the real estate market and distributing that to their members.

With the latest data deluge, I decided to play around with mapping some of the data using a website called GeoCommons.  GeoCput ommons make it easy to put data onto a map.  For instance, Colliers International releases reports on office vacancy every quarter.  They include a table of data for 50 or markets showing various metrics such as vacancy rates, square footage under construction, etc.  I took this table of data and put it into GeoCommons.  I had to fumble around with pdf (I found a way to copy tabular data out of a pdf), Excel and another website called batchgeocode.com (I used this to take the cities provided in the report and obtain a lat/long value for each, since GeoCommons requires a lat and long).

The final result is below.  Pretty cool, eh?  I only put one layer of data in this map.  I could have added any of the metrics found in the report, but it got messy quick with lots of transparent bubbles and such.  You can still see those other metrics when you click on the cities.

The coveted orange hood

While I was in college, I was involved with the UNR ASCE/AGC student chapter (on a side note, here are some pictures from a 2004 Regional Conference I helped  organize).  At every national or regional ASCE event I attended, there was always a lot of discussion on ASCE Policy Statement 465, Academic Prerequisites for Licensure and Professional Practice.  In this post, I will explain what PS465 means, give some history, and give my opinion on how ASCE has changed their position on the issue of education and compensation.

What is Policy 465?

ASCE currently defines Policy 465 as:

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) supports the attainment of a Body of Knowledge (BOK) for entry into the practice of civil engineering at the professional level. This would be accomplished through the adoption of appropriate engineering education and experience requirements as a prerequisite for licensure.

Body of Knowledge is a little ambiguous, so ASCE defines it as the necessary depth and breadth of knowledge, skills, and attitudes required of an individual entering the practice of civil engineering at the professional level in the 21st century.

What all this says is that (taken from the Policy 465 Key Points): It is evident that the exploding body of science and engineering knowledge cannot be accommodated within the context of the traditional four year baccalaureate degree.

What I have gathered from reading the ASCE documents on the subject, ASCE is unsatisfied with the current level of education of civil engineers; they want to raise the bar for civil engineers, which will in turn raise the public’s perception of our profession!  They would prefer to see a model similar to that of lawyers and doctors, where a broader education is taught in series (i.e. 4 year undergrad more breadth, followed by 2-3 years specialization) in lieu of the current parallel education (all sorts of stuff crammed into 4 years).

More information can be found at ASCE’s 465 site http://www.asce.org/raisethebar.

The History of Policy Statement 465

1998 – ASCE adopts PS465 which states “The ASCE supports the concept of the master’s degree as the first professional degree (FPD) for the practice of civil engineering at the professional level.”

2001 – ASCE adopts revised PS465 which states “ASCE supports the concept of the master’s degree or equivalent (MOE) as a prerequisite for licensure and the practice of civil engineering at the professional level.”

2001 – Business Case for the Master’s Degree: The Financial Side of the Equation.  This was a paper published in Civil Engineering Education Issues by Professor Jeffery Russell at the University of Wisconsin.  The entire paper was on compensation of civil engineers and comparing that compensation to other professions.  One of the original drafts of PS465 (page 14) cited this paper as the foundation for future drafts.

2002 – Another great paper by Professor Russell expanding on the Master’s Degree case.  He sells the case better than ASCE sells the case.  Read this paper.

2004 – ASCE revises PS465 to be more consistent with the first Body of Knowledge document. read “The ASCE supports the attainment of a body of knowledge for entry into the practice of civil engineering at the professional level. This would be accomplished through the adoption of appropriate engineering education and experience requirements as a prerequisite for licensure.”

2007 – ASCE revises the definition of Body of Knowledge (reffered to as BOK2) to be more consistent with the The Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025.

2009 – ASCE releases latest version of 2025 Vision.

Opinion

In the current Body of Knowledge Document, ASCE states that “The ASCE Board of Direction has been consistent in its 1998 initial adoption and subsequent 2001, 2004, and 2007 refinements of the policy.  ASCE leadership strongly supports reform of civil engineering education and prelicensure experience.”

I disagree with this statement.   ASCE changed their position on two fundamental issues.

Compensation

ASCE backtracked on citing compensation as one of the major drivers for requiring additional education.  In the earlier drafts of the policy statement and the explanation, compensation was cited multiple times as one of the reasons for requiring more education.  There is not one mention of a compensation driver in the current Policy Statement, the FAQ’s or key points.  For an issue that seemed to be a fundamental part of the original argument, it strikes me as odd that there is no longer any mention of it.

Master’s or no Master’s?

ASCE backtracked on the issue of a master’s degree.  The 1998 Policy Statement recommended a master’s degree, with no other option.  This has gradually been decreased from a master’s, to a master’s or master’s equivalent to fulfilling a rubric of education/distance learning/experience requirements outlined in the BOK.  Per the BOK

The premise of PS 465 gradually shifted from a degree basis (for example, “the master’s as the first professional degree”) through the “master’s degree or equivalent” approach, finally settling on a BOK foundation. This provides flexibility for engineers who cannot or do not wish to pursue a master’s degree through traditional means.

I would love to see a 5 or 6 year program made mandatory for licensure, with more specialized licenses.  The extended education would broaden as well as add more depth to the education of an engineer and as Professor Russell cited, would only make better engineers.  I believe this was the intent of the original PS465.  It should have remained that way.

In Closing

One interesting quote from one of the first Policy Statements (page 30) was

The veterinarian who neuters your dog must have twice the formal education as the civil engineer who designs your community water supply system.

Advertising

This statement is inflammatory.  We should not devalue other professions in order to prove how valuable we are.  To ASCE’s credit, these kind of remarks are not found in the latest set of documents. If ASCE wants the public to value our services as much as the public values a veterinarian’s (or doctor’s or lawyer’s) ASCE should have remained strong on their initial Policy Statement of expanding education and not backtrack to accepting distance learning programs.  I doubt many veterinarians (or lawyers or doctors) take distance learning courses on how to neuter dogs.  I certainly wouldn’t want my brain surgeon to have taken online courses in surgery via Norwich University, which  conveniently enough advertises on the ASCE website.

Energy legs

We recently investigated adding solar power to one of our projects; a small retail building in California.  I learned quite a bit and I thought I would share some of the  information I learned.

Parapets

Many jurisdictions require screening for rooftop mechanical units.  A common way to screen mechanical units is to add parapets around the entire perimiter of the building.  Tall parapets will limit the area of roof that will be fully exposed during the day and therefore limit the amount of viable roof area used for solar power generation.   The parapets will shade the roof equal to 2 times the parapet hieght.  For instance, if your parapet is 3 feet, it will shade 6 feet of roof.  See the figure below for more information.

Usable Area and Energy Production

Net effective roof areas

A rule of thumb for the usable square footage (after you take into account parapets and other obstructions), would be to take 60% of the available area.  This reduction accounts for spacing of panels, mechanical ducts, walking areas, chords and other obstructions.

For the solar panel manufacturer we were talking with, thier product would produce 1kW of energy per 100sf.  This is the magic number that the solar industry wants to raise; if one manufacturer can produce more energy per sqaure foot for the same price, they have an advantage over their competitors. 

kW and kWh

Full solar production is during 10am and 4 pm (geographic assumptions include northern hemisphere, west coast, etc.).  On average, there will be 3 hours of full exposure in the winter and 7.5 hours in the summer in which the solar panels will be effective.  Averaged out over one year, that is 5.2 hours per day of available production. 

For instance, if your net effective roof area was 1000 sf, and you happened to building in the same region as our building, you would be able to produce 1000sf*1kW/100sf*5.2 hours/day = 52 kWh of energy. 

This brings up another topic, what is power and what is energy.  This website summed it up best (for me anyways):

Power may be measured at any point in time, whereas energy has to be measured during a certain period.

Disclaimer

This information is very specifc to the one job we worked on, in the one area and the production numbers was one specific product.  The technology is changing so fast, that these costs, available production, etc. might be completely out of date in a couple of months.  However, the tips presented above will stay the same.  Watch out for screening, your entire roof area will not be effective in generating power, solar panels will only produce power for a limited amount of time each day, and it will vary throughout the year. 

For more information, here is a good treehugger.com article on how solar works.

The first visualization I could obtain without much effort is the number of LEED Accredited Professionals by state.  California leads the nation with over 11,300 LEED APs. New York comes in second with over 4,900 LEED APs.

However, when I normalized the data to display number of LEED APs per million people (based on 2007 census information), the picture changes quite a bit.

Washington, DC has a small population, but a relatively large LEED AP population with almost 2,300 LEED APs for every million people. California, on the other hand has 311 for every million people. A couple of things come to mind for why DC is so high:

• The USGBC keeps its headquarters in Washington, DC.  In 2006 they had 70 employees.
• Government LEED APs could skew the numbers.  GSA, US Dept of Interior, lobbyists, etc.
• A number of large architecture firms have offices in Washington DC (Gensler, HOK, Perkins + Will, RTKL, URS, etc.)

For the rest of the data, I am going to try and take this slow and dig through over the next couple of weeks.  I am interested to hear what type of charts you would like to see.  Make sure to leave a comment and I will see what I can do.

Analemma Over the Porch of Maidens

I do not want to imply that I will be starting a daily word post.  I just wanted a catchy title.

I tried to come up with my own definition but the concept is a little heavy.  So I will let NASA do it:

If you took a picture of the Sun at the same time each day, would it remain in the same position? The answer is no, and the shape traced out by the Sun over the course of a year is called an analemma. The Sun’s apparent shift is caused by the Earth’s motion around the Sun when combined with the tilt of the Earth’s rotation axis. The Sun will appear at its highest point of the analemma during summer and at its lowest during winter. Today, the Winter Solstice day in Earth’s northern hemisphere, the Sun is at the bottom of the analemma.

This quote is from http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081221.html. See also http://www.uwm.edu/~kahl/Images/Weather/Other/analemma.html for a neat photo.

Sun Path Diagram courtesy of AECbytes

What does this have to do with architecture or design?  Well, in my readings of Sun, Wind and Light, I came across the concept of sun dials (used to evaluate effects of existing site conditions, impacts of building massing, etc.), sun path diagrams (which show the path of the sun in the sky dome as projected on a horizontal surface (Libbey-Owens-Ford, 1974) and solar radiation (amount of energy put off by the sun; used in determining occupant comfort and potential for solar heating in buildings).  The picture to the left is generated by Ecotect (from an AECbytes tutorial on Ecotect) and shows the sun’s position throughout the entire year.

This analemma is inside that picture.  Can you see the figure “8″ in there?  However, there are a number of analemmas in the Ecotect picture because the picture shows not just one specific time (i.e. 8:30am) but displays all sunlit hours of the day.

The sun’s position throughout the year plays a role in designing sustainable and comfortable facilities.  Architects design windows and fenestration taking into account these kinds of things to maximize occupant comfort by insuring not to much heat gets in the building and minimize energy bills by using the sun when possible.  It is just amazing!

For further reading:

• http://www.analemma.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma
• http://www.geoastro.de/analemma/index.htm (roll your own sundial!)

Fish Springs Pump Station

Two BJG designed Northern Nevada pump station projects are built and ready to pump water to Reno area residents.  BJG performed architectural and structural design, construction support, and structural observation services for the two projects.  We were contracted by Eco:Logic Engineering to perform the work and they were a pleasure to work with.  Eco:Logic was the lead consultant on the two projects that are intended to help meet future municipal and industrial water demands for the Reno and surrounding areas.

The first constructed of the two developments was the Fish Springs water supply project.  The finished product consists of a 4400 square foot booster pump station and six 620 square foot well houses in the fish springs area 1.5 hours or so north of Reno.  The six well houses pump water to the booster pump station and the booster pump station shoots the water up over a hill and into the Lemmon Valley/Stead area just North of Reno.  Check out the fish springs ranch water project web site here.  There is almost 30 miles of 30 inch transmission main running from the booster station to the Lemmon Valley/Stead area.  Included in this building is a hypochlorite tank room that is recessed 3′-4″ for hypochlorite spill containment.  The photograph below was taken in February, it shows the pump station as it was nearing completion.

TMWA North Virginia Pump Station

The second constructed was the TMWA North Virginia pump station (seen in the photo taken a few weeks ago).  This building is located near the University of Nevada, Reno and was designed to blend in with the surrounding residential zone.  The building floor plan is very similar to the Fish Springs pump station.  Since it does not have a hypochlorite tank room, it is slightly smaller (3800 square feet) than the Fish Springs building.

Both buildings are constructed with CMU walls and open web steel joists under metal deck roof.  Both buildings contain 5 large pumps and 1 large storage tank.  BJG designed the pedestals for the pumps and the storage tanks.  BJG also provided the design for a structural steel catwalk in each building that is suspended from the open web steel joists.  The catwalk will be used for maintenance purposes to access mechanical louvers.

Vidler Pipes

Do you think these are large water projects?  Take a look at the tiny man next to the pipes in the photo below.  This is before the Fish Springs building was placed over the pipes.  These pipes were eventually attached to pumps that BJG designed the footings for.

No Respect

I am at the SEAOC Convention in Hawaii.  We are about halfway through and so far, I am pleased with the technical content and social activities.  I will write a full report later, but I wanted to briefly discuss the SEAOC Excellence in Engineering Awards.

First, some background. A common theme (officially and unofficially) in the last couple of Conventions has been the desire to raise the general public’s perception of the structural engineering profession and our impact on society.  We are constantly envying how revered doctors are and how much lawyers get paid.  We complain about not being highly paid for our services and expertise.  In general we complain about not getting the respect we deserve.

The SEAOC Excellence in Engineering Awards Ceremony was one of the most poorly attended events at the Convention thus far.  It was embarrassing.  Not only was the initial attendance poor, but it dwindled by about half towards the end of the ceremony.  Yes, the ceremony went a little long, and yes, we are in Hawaii, and yes there are other things going on; but we need to support our fellow structural engineers.

The submitting companies spend valuable time preparing their entries.  The judging panel (made up of one engineer from each of the five SEAOC sections as well as an architect and contractor) spends days assessing each project and writing opinion statements.

How can we ask society to get excited about our award winning projects when we can not get excited about them?  How can we demand respect from society as a whole, when we are not willing to give respect to our fellow engineers by honoring their achievements through an hour and a half long awards ceremony once a year?

Here are some of the sessions I plan on attending.

Report Cards for Building Seismic Safety: A Proposed Rating System for Earthqauke Performance of Buildings

This session is being giving by the SEAONC Existing Buildings Committee.  This is right inline with the training I took in 2006 to become a Safety Assessment Evaluator.  This training, put on by SEAONC and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is a 1 day course. From the SEAONC website:

When earthquake disaster strikes a community, there is an immediate need for damage inspections. The Structural Engineer’s Association of Northern California has teamed with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) to recruit, train, and maintain a group of licensed engineers who are ready to respond following a major earthquake to assess the safety of building structures. There are currently approximately 278 SEAONC members who are registered as Volunteer Safety Assessment Engineers. To activate such a large pool of volunteers, the SEAONC DES-ATC 20 Subcommittee has created a telephone and e-mail communication network in order to provide rapid response to the affected communities.

Best Design Practices for Seismic Evaluation and Preservation of Historic Buildings:  Distinct Structural Systems and Benefit Cost Analyses

This session is exciting to me because it takes the evaluation part and extends it to a value and cost dimension.  When is a certain structural system the most cost effective for the owner and occupants?  This session has the potential shed some light on this subject.

Structual Implications of Green Roofs, Terraces, and Walls

I have not designed a green roof as of yet, however, I have always wondered about their effects on the load bearing systems in a building.  What about water and rain retention?  How does these additional loads affect the lateral (shear walls, moment frames, etc.) systems?  This will be a very interesting session.

On a similar note, green is the hottest design item right now.  It is interesting to look back three or four years ago at the proceedings and not find a single paper or presentation researching the structural implications of green design.  However, you could find numerous papers (there seemed like there were entire afternoons devoted to the topic) on buckling restrained braced frames or unbonded braces.  Now, there afternoons devoted to green design and only one presentation on buckling restrained braced frames.

Numerous Local Flavor Topics

There are always a number local topics presented at each convention.  This is a neat way to become connected with the engineers in the area of the convention.  This year there are presentations on Microzoned Design Maps of Topographic Wind Effects and Exposure in the Building Codes of the State of Hawaii and Performance of the Kawaihae Harbor Port Facility Resulting from teh 2006 Earthquake.

Social Programs

On top of the technical sessions there are ample opportunities for socializing and networking.  There are themed welcome receptions and cocktail hours, younger member receptions, and the all important President’s Cup where the different sections (Northern, Central and Southern California as well as San Diego) compete against each other in mental and physical competitions.

I will report back after the conference to give everyone an update on the conference.  Stay tuned!  Additionally, if you will be in attendance, let me know in the comments what sessions you are looking forward to.

Not so long ago, the concentric braced frame was a thing of simplicity and reliability. Inexpensive to implement and relatively simple to design, it was an important system of choice for economical structures where the architectural floor plan could accommodate the brace layout. Several typical braced frame configurations are shown immediately below and will be discussed later where appropriate.

A typical braced frame “works” by transferring horizontal forces to foundations by pushing or pulling on the diagonal steel member. See Figure 8 for an illustration. Engineers have tried many varieties of braced frames over the centuries. Some have performed well, some have performed poorly and some have been “just ok”. Much of what we have learned has been by seeing what does and does not work in earthquakes.

Some configurations, such as the “K” brace, where the braces intersect the side of a column, failed in an undesirable way (the column buckled) and these configurations were prohibited. This made sense because a failed column can lead to a roof collapse.

The most popular configuration of concentric brace frames are the “V” and inverted “V”. These configurations work well because they provide areas for large openings that allow access through the frame.

As codes and research have evolved, the ability of buildings to absorb energy (ductility) during earthquakes has become the dominant theme in earthquake design. Concentric braced frames are normally very rigid and not very ductile – they tend to take load until they either break or buckle.

Another issue with braced frames is that test results have shown that failure often occurs at the connection. This observation has led the code writing bodies to add requirements to ensure the attachments of the brace are stronger than the other components, including the brace. Good idea but tough in practice. The compression or “pushing” strength of a brace is much lower than the tension or “pulling” strength. (Think of pushing or pulling on drinking straw.) The end result is that we are required to make the connections stronger than the pulling strength which is already much more than the “design” strength of the brace in compression and, subsequently, the connections quickly increase in size.

Even with larger, stronger connections, concentric braced frames were still economical and practical. However, since about 2000, there has been a “loss of confidence” in the concentric braced frame based primarily on research in structural laboratories. This has been reflected in higher design force requirements in the building code and more complicated design requirements.

The old concentric braced frame has become the “ordinary” concentric braced frame and its use in higher seismic areas is either prohibited or severely limited by the IBC and its adopted references. “Special” concentric braced frames, which are designed to enhance ductility, are required in higher seismic areas.

The latest and most recent change in the IBC from the 2003 to the 2006 is effectively an end to the old “V” and chevron bracing system in large warehouse applications. An exception that previously exempted one story buildings from having to meet post buckled strength requirements has been removed. This requirement affects the “V” and inverted “V” brace. The beam at the intersection of the two braces is required to resist the force of only one of the braces pulling on the beam assuming the other brace has buckled and has no residual strength. In a typical warehouse, this force results in the biggest wide flange (300 lb/ft) failing.

Luckily, the team at BJG is here to help. We have begun implementing “zipper” columns and/or “X” bracing in our braced frame designs which solve many of the concerns with the old braced frames for a relatively small cost. It is important to note that these solutions reduce the size of openings available through the frame, which for industrial buildings effects truck and forklift traffic at the frame location.

Lastly we would like to introduce you to the “protected zone”. The 2006 IBC adopted references have specified that items cannot be connected to a brace at either end or in the middle, this includes pins or welds. See figure 9. The reasoning is that these attachments could be crack initiators inducing a non-ductile fracture failure mode. This includes limiting demising wall framing attachments. This requirement makes framing a wall in the plane of a brace virtually impossible. BJG has solved this issue by sliding demising walls to one side or the other of the brace and running them full height. Installing the sheetrock, taping, texturing, calculating rentable square footage, etc is harder, but not impossible.

In summation, the code changes governing braced frame design makes braced frames far more ductile, somewhat more expensive and much less user friendly for industrial buildings. They are still the logical choice for many applications but we do not think they are the automatic solution that they were a few years back. We recommend that all lateral bracing solutions including interior shear walls, moment frames and, yes, braced frames be investigated early in the design process and the appropriate solution for each facility be determined by your BJG design team.