Tag: structural engineering

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Earthquake Engineering News & Events Structural Engneering

Session 11 : Amendment no. 2 for IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2016 & IS 13920 : 2016

Recently, BIS published the amendments related to IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2016 & IS 13920 in November, 2020. The article shows some of the major changes made in the code as per my understanding. Only brief details are mentioned below, for details please refer the amendments.

Amendment no. 2 of IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2016

1.     Clause related to vertical earthquake shaking is modified. The requirements are added for embankments, dams, bridges, etc. Also, the criteria for consideration of vertical earthquake shaking are modified. 

2.     The methodology for calculation of torsional irregularity is updated. The maximum displacement should be checked against the average displacement as against the minimum displacement in the previous version of the code. For more details, please refer the amendment.

 3.     For a building with re-entrant corners, three dimensional dynamic analysis to be performed with the flexible floor diaphragm. If there is a rigid diaphragm in the building then two separate analysis to be performed, firstly with flexible diaphragm and secondly with the rigid diaphragm. The worst effects to be considered from both the analysis.

 4.     For out of plane offset in vertical elements, the forces and moments due to earthquake effects in the elements connecting the two vertical elements with out of plane offset elements, the vertical element supporting the offset, and connections shall be enhanced by a factor of at least 2.5.

 5.     The provisions for stiffness irregularity are further clarified and few changes are made as well. In the note, it is mentioned that this provision is not applicable to such storeys, which have: (a) lower height, where services and utilities are housed, or (b) outrigger frame members placed in them.

 6.     For weak storey irregularity – buildings with strength irregularity shall not be permitted. In case, the weak storey is because of URM infills, provisions of 7.10 shall be followed.

 7.     Floating columns – Such columns are likely to cause concentrated damage in the structure, and are undesirable. A building with floating columns shall not be permitted, if the floating columns are part of or supporting the primary lateral load resisting system.’

 8.     Irregularity related to “Irregular Modes of Oscillation in Two Principal Plan Directions” is further clarified. It is also mentioned that this provision is not applicable to buildings with large podiums in the lower storeys.

 9.     For importance factor, “school” is replaced with the “educational building”.

 10.  OBF is not allowed in seismic zone III, IV & V.

 11.  Provisions for flat slab – structural wall system are further clarified.

 12.  Formula for Aw is modified and now it is same as when the code was published in 2016. It is mentioned that The value of Ta obtained shall neither be taken to be more than that given in 7.6.2 (a) nor less than that given in 7.6.2 (c).

 13.  In case of URM, RC members shall be designed for the governing combinations of stress resultants arising from structural analysis of:

a) Bare frame building, and

b) Frame building with URM infills.

14. For other details, please refer the amendment.

 Amendment no. 2 of IS 13920 : 2016

1.    Steel reinforcement shall comply with all of the following:

a) Elongation shall be at least 14.5 percent,

b) Ratio of ultimate stress to 0.2 percent proof stress shall not exceed 1.25,

c) Ratio of ultimate stress to 0.2 percent proof stress shall be at least 1.15, and

d) Steel shall be only of strength grades with minimum 0.2 percent proof stress of 415 MPa, 500 MPa or 550 MPa, in addition to other requirements of IS 1786.’

 2.     In cl no. 9.1.1, modifications are made for calculation of nominal shear strength of concrete in a beam-column joint.  

3.     In cl no. 9.1.2, provisions related to design shear stress demand are further clarified.

4. For other details, please refer the amendment. 

We are planning live technical discussion for the amendments on 20-DEC-20 at 11:00AM IST. Please share your comments / discussion points in the below comment box. We will discuss the same during live session of 20-DEC-20.

Link of the live session is attached below. Please like and share this video with the interested engineers in your circle.

Session 11 : Recent amendments for IS 1893 (Part 1):2016 and IS 13920:2016 – Live discussion

An online course related to earthquake resistant design will start from 17-MAR-22. Please watch the introductory video below:

EQ-STR-002 : Learn concepts of earthquake resistant design

Click below for more details and registration for EQ-STR-002

LEARN MORE
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News & Events Quality Assurance Structural Engneering

Importance of Quality Assurance in Structural Engineering Firm

Thank you all for participation in the live session for “Importance of Quality Assurance in structural engineering firm” and for raising important discussion points. Bhavin Shah (Founder & CEO, SQVe Consultants) had conducted the session.

The link of video is shared below, in case you have missed out the live session.

Your further views/comments are welcome on the subject.

Categories
News & Events Quality Assurance Structural Engneering

Session 10 – Importance of Quality Assurance in Structural Engineering Firms

Join us for Live Discussion on 13-DEC-20 at 11:00am IST for “Importance of Quality Assurance in Structural Engineering firms”.

Quality assurance is one of the extremely important area for the design engineering consultancy firms. The Quality Assurance covers the broader aspects like compliances to the prevailing regulatory standards, meeting functional & aesthetics requirements, ensuring strength and stability of structures, effective interface to avoid rework at site, generating error free design documents, inclusion of sustainability, safety, constructability aspects, etc.Please tag the engineers in your circle who may be interested in the topic. Also, pl share your discussion points in the below comment box. We will take up the same during the live session.

Session 10 : Importance of Quality Assurance in Structural Engineering Firms
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Geotechnical Engineering News & Events Online Courses Structural Engneering

First Facebook Live session of SQVe Consultants : Importance of interface between Geotechnical and Structural engineers

We had an interesting conversation on the subject : Importance of interface between Geotechnical & Structural Engineers. Your further comments / queries on the subject are invited.

For safety of the structure and cost optimisation, appropriate geotechnical investigation is extremely important. Apart from definite statistics, it can be said that the geotechnical failures are one of the major causes for collapse of the structures. In the typical fast track projects, sometimes proper interface is not carried out between geotechnical engineer and structural engineer which may affect adversely the major goals of engineering, i.e. safety of the structure and cost optimisation. Also, the project may get delayed substantially due to inappropriate soil investigation or may be due to lack of interface between geotechnical engineer and structural engineer.

VIVEK KUMAR MITRA is a renowned consultant in Geotechnical Engineering. He commenced his career as a GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEER at TATA Consulting Engineers Limited, Mumbai. Later he moved to organization like Bureau Veritas, Reliance, Impac, Egis Consulting Engineers. He was at Abu Dhabi for mega artificial Island Project in 2013 and represented ADNOC. He is geotechnical consultant for projects at Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Dubai.He has worked in projects in the areas of Offshore, Infrastructure, Power, Refinery, Petrochemicals & Marine. He also handled with distinction various projects in Ports & Harbors, Mega-Infrastructure, Artificial Islands, Dredging / Land Reclamation and Oil & Gas, Ground Improvement for ultra-soft soil. He is the Founder & CEO of VKM GEOTECHNICS which he started in 2019.

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR

Mr. Bhavin Shah is passionate about Engineering profession with two decades of experience. He is having a dream for enhancing the engineering profession in different organisations. He completed graduation in Civil Engineering and Masters in Structures from Sardar Patel University. He is having unique experience of working in the specialized firm of civil / structural consultancy which grew as multidisciplinary firm (VMS), large multidisciplinary firm (L&T Chiyoda Ltd.) and owner based engineering set up (Adani Infra (I) Ltd.). He worked in different organisations at different levels, starting from junior design engineer to CEO. He is Founder & CEO of SQVe Consultants.

Link for registration and payment for the online course GEO-STR-001 : https://sqveconsultants.com/2020/10/14/online-course-process-of-interactive-geotechnical-investigation/

Categories
Geotechnical Engineering News & Events Structural Engneering

Session no. 9 – Discussion about our upcoming online course GEO-STR-001 : Live Technical Discussion

Session 9 - Discussion about our upcoming online course GEO-STR-001 : Live Technical Discussion
Session 9 - Discussion about our upcoming online course GEO-STR-001 : Live Technical Discussion

We are glad to announce our first online course in the important area of interface between geotechnical and structural engineering. The course title is “GEO-STR-001 : Process of Interactive Geotechnical Investigation”.

For safety of the structure and cost optimisation, appropriate geotechnical investigation is extremely important. In the typical fast track projects, sometimes proper interface is not carried out between geotechnical engineer and structural engineer which may affect adversely the major goals of engineering, i.e. safety of the structure and cost optimisation. Also, the project may get delayed substantially due to inappropriate soil investigation.

The course is designed carefully to address the practical aspects so that the details can be readily used in the real projects. We are thankful of Vivek Kumar MITRA for his efforts in designing the unique course.

We are pleased to mention that it created a lot of excitement in the prospective participants. We have received numerous suggestions/questions from social media regarding the content and structure of the course. Part of the same will be covered in this course and we will attempt to cover the balance details in the future courses.

In next live technical discussion on 8-Nov-20, we are going to focus our discussion on the upcoming online course. The agenda of the session will be as follows:

  • To give overall introduction about content and structure of the course
  • Brief discussion about the interesting questions (around 35 nos.) received from social media
  • Collating the further important suggestions/questions received from the participants through live chat
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Link for participating in all live technical discussions (EVERY SUNDAY at 11:00am IST):
https://youtube.com/c/StructuralEngineering/Live

Registration for the course is open. For more details and registration, please refer the following link:

https://sqveconsultants.com/2020/10/14/online-course-process-of-interactive-geotechnical-investigation/

Looking forward for your participation in the session of 8-NOV-20. You may also share the input in the below comment box.

Session 9 – Discussion about our upcoming online course GEO-STR-001 : Live Technical Discussion

Facilitator : Bhavin Shah (Founder & CEO, SQVe Consultants)

Categories
News & Events Structural Engneering

Session 8 : Wind force estimation for tall structures as per IS 875-Part 3

Session no. 8 : Wind force estimation for tall structures as per IS 875-Part 3
Session no. 8 : Wind force estimation for tall structures as per IS 875-Part 3

As a part of weekly live technical discussion series, we had very interactive session for estimation of wind force for low rise structures. In the session of 1-Nov-20, we will focus our discussion on Tall buildings.

Wind forces & associated response of Tall buildings is much important not only for design of building but also from the point of view of acceleration & human comfort, surrounding wind flow pattern changes, glazings & facade design, pedestrian level comfort etc. Dynamic response evaluation is critical & particularly across wind response for tall slender buildings. Interference among buildings when they exist in a cluster are still not fully well understood and documented. Hence, our session on 1st November will be dedicated to Tall buildings.

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Er. Dr. Abhay Gupta will join with us in the live stream as a guest expert. He has obtained his BE(Civil) in 1981 & subsequently ME(Structures) from SGSITS Indore; and Ph.D. from University of Roorkee, Roorkee (now IIT Roorkee) in the area of “Aerodynamic Interference in Tall Rectangular Buildings: Wind Tunnel Studies” in 1996. He has more than 35 years of experience in the field of Civil Engineering construction and Structural design. Dr. Abhay Gupta is one of the Directors of Skeleton Consultants Pvt. Ltd. Noida. Dr. Gupta has also worked as Principal consultant for establishment of Wind tunnel facility at Guna MP.

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TONY ROFAIL – DIRECTOR, WINDTECH

Mr. Tony Rofail will also join the live stream as a guest expert. Tony has been the principal consultant at Windtech since 1991 where he has carried out or supervised wind engineering services for over 2,500 major projects around the world, including numerous landmark projects. This includes the study of structural wind loads and cladding pressures on large structures, wind environment and air quality studies, wind-noise, natural ventilation design and modelling, sustainable design as well as product development for aerodynamic performance. 

Facilitator : Bhavin Shah, Founder & CEO – SQVe Consultants

Session no. 8 : Wind force estimation for tall structures as per IS 875-Part 3
Our all live sessions are streamed at the following link (Every Sunday at 11:00am IST) :
https://youtube.com/c/StructuralEngineering/Live

In the comment box, please share your questions / areas which you would like to get covered in the session pertaining to tall buildings.

Categories
News & Events Structural Engneering

Session no. 7 : Irregularities as per Table no. 5 & 6 of IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2016

I have received suggestions from engineers to take up the discussion on irregularities as per table no. 5 &6 of IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2016.

It is a well established fact that the regular building perform better than the irregular buildings during seismic event. In IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2016, plan and vertical irregularities are defined in Table no. 5 & 6 of the code. The building is said to be irregular if any one of the irregularity is present in the building. It is mentioned in the code that all the efforts shall be made to eliminate irregularities by modifying architectural planning and structural configurations.

For each irregularity, mathematical limits are defined in the code as well as further action is detailed out whenever the irregularity exceeds the defined limits.        

Table no. 5 – Plan irregularities :

  • Torsional irregularity
  • Re-entrant corners
  • Floor slabs having excessive cut-outs or opening
  • Out-of-plane offsets in vertical elements
  • Non-parallel lateral force system

Table no. 6 – Vertical irregularities :

  1. Stiffness irregularity (Soft storey)
  2. Mass irregularity
  3. Vertical geometric irregularity
  4. In-plane discontinuity in Vertical elements resisting lateral force
  5. Strength irregularity (Weak storey)
  6. Floating or stub columns
  7. Irregular modes of oscillation in two principal plan directions

We will discuss each irregularity in detail during live technical discussion. The participants will also share their experiences related to the table no. 5 & 6 of the code. 

You may share the specific queries / discussion point which may be taken up during live technical discussion.

Join us on next Sunday (25-Oct-20) for live technical discussion on different irregularities as per table no. 5 and 6 of IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2016. Please share discussion points for the same in the comment box. You may also circulate this message with the interested engineers in your circle.

Session no. 7 – Irregularities as per Table no. 5 & 6 of IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2016
Facilitator : Bhavin Shah, Founder & CEO – SQVe Consultants

Categories
Quality Assurance

Importance of Quality Assurance in Structural Engineering Firms

Background

Quality assurance is one of the extremely important area for the design engineering consultancy firms. The Quality Assurance covers the broader aspects like compliances to the prevailing regulatory standards, meeting functional & aesthetics requirements, ensuring strength and stability of structures, effective interface to avoid rework at site, generating error free design documents, inclusion of sustainability, safety, constructability aspects, etc. In my opinion to achieve the quality objectives, it is required to define them clearly at initial stage of the project so that the required aspects can be covered during appropriate stages of the projects such as conceptualization, basic engineering, detail engineering, execution, operation, maintenance, etc. In this blog, we are going to talk specifically about the structural engineering firms from the perspective of quality assurance. In upcoming blogs, we will talk more about the multi-disciplinary engineering firms.

Why Quality Assurance is so much important for the Structural Engineering firms or structural department in the multi disciplinary firm?

The prime role of a structural engineer in any project is to ensure the strength & stability of the structures, effective interface with the other disciplines to understand the functional requirements, meeting functional requirements along with the structural requirements, ensuring error free design and documents, compliance to the latest IS codes, generating drawings by taking care of the constructability, sustainability & safety aspects, etc. As structural engineers are taking the prime responsibility for strength and stability of the structure, the quality assurance is extremely important for structures function in the company. In the current scenario, Work From Home is becoming now new normal which again require increased attention on the quality assurance.

What are the common challenges which are being faced by the structures group for quality assurance?

Some of the areas where structures group are facing the challenges are mentioned below:

  • The projects are becoming increasingly fast-track, so the availability of time for the detailed design process is one of the major concern.
  • Apart from any definite statistics, I am of the opinion that the geotechnical failure is one of the major reason for the failure/collapse of the structures. Hence, interface between geo-technical engineer and structural engineer is very crucial for entire project cycle as well as during operation & maintenance.
  • IS codes which are generally used in the design are getting revised gradually to meet the global design practices. The typical revision cycle for IS code is in range of 10~15 years. So, whenever the standards are revised, the consultants have to upgrade the knowledge and the design practices to meet the requirements of the latest codes.
  • With the revisions of IS codes and due to internal bugs or improvements, the software are now revised more frequently than before. With every new version of the software, the design engineer has to become acquaint with the same and at the same time, it has to be ensured that the software is free of major bugs. Authentication / validation of the software is extremely important and the engineer should be aware about limitations of the same while performing the analysis & design.
  • Generally, the excel sheets are used in the design offices for manual design for the items which are not designed in the software. If the control design sheets are not maintained then after few years, there will be multiple versions available with the design engineers may be with nominal changes. Validation and control of these design means is also important for the quality assurance.
  • Frequency of revision of documents is increasing due to internal and external reasons. The chances of errors tend to increase while revising the documents.
  • For keeping pace with the global design practices, the engineers should be trained in the areas like performance based design, wind engineering, concepts of structural dynamics for earthquake resistant design, design of steel structures using Limit State Design method, etc.
  • Due to higher attrition rate,  mid size company might stay in the continuous recruiting mode. Handover of documents and training of newly recruited engineers require substantial investment of time and efforts.

How SQVe can help the company for the above mentioned challenging areas?

  • Our unique mixture of technical depth and proficiency of organization development brings on board the effective and practical solutions for the above mentioned problems. The solutions will be highly customized to meet the requirements of the company. We strive towards making the companies strong internally.
  • We will associate with the company on need basis and the exact scope of work will be detailed out mutually. The entire work will be divided in three phases, firstly, identifying gap areas, secondly, working out the action plan for improvement and finally providing the hand holding support for the implementation.
  • Please get in touch with us to know more about this unique service : contact@sqveconsultants.com . We will schedule online meeting to discuss it further.

Your views/suggestions are welcome.

Bhavin Shah

Founder & CEO, SQVe Consultants