"It has been approved by the AISC Committee on Specifications and is ANSI-accredited and forms the basis for the 14th Edition Steel Construction Manual, which is scheduled to be published in the third quarter of 2011."
What major breakthroughs in steel design have necessitated another update? FWIW, I rather like the new code other than the Bible-like micro thin pages, I am a bit rough on books and everything else for that matter.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I am starting become very skeptical of all of the constant changes and revisions to building codes, ASCE 7, etc. These only seem to make these documents more complicated and more un-user friendly, and make us more prone to making mistakes. I am all for advancing the state of the art and continuing education, and fine tuning our knowledge, and making structures safer. But does all this accomplish an increase in safety and economy at the end of the day?
Sorry, not trying to start tirade. I am sure some will make some valid points as the validity of these seemingly constant changes.
This is what they say on AISC.org:
“The 2010 AISC Specification contains few major revisions and continues to address both LRFD and ASD methods of design,” commented Cynthia Duncan, AISC director of engineering. “However, it includes new topics and updated design provisions important to the industry today such as structural integrity, new composite member provisions, revisions to slip-critical connection design provisions, as well as a new chapter on quality control and quality assurance.”
I was being playful, but was speaking seriously. Most of those files in your link are errata with the manuals.... not with the specifications themselves.
Won't the Manual and the specifications ever be separated? It seems like bulk of the activity really happen on the specifications side and some major changes do happen on the design tables.
Would it be better that AISC adopts a loose leaf printing that will be easy on the end user, similar to AASHTO? You only swap out pages that changed rather than have to buy a brand new manual every few years.
Here we go again.
I have become really discouraged at the state of the recent AISC specifications.As "a2fmk" pointed out, they are becoming less useful and more cumbersome to use.
Even the most simple engineering concept, by the time they are
finished with it, has become hopelessly complicated, opaque and
time consuming to apply ,in order to save a few pounds of steel.
It seems they have dumped everything out on the table, both the
trivial and the important, and saying to the practising engineer you sort it out.
All else being equal, it is more efficient for me now to
design using concrete rather than steel as long as I stay away
from the dreaded appendix "D".
It would be a great service to the practising engineers if this forum could add a section consisting of a poll and any relative comments so that we could rate the various codes on clarity, usefullnes, continuity, ease-of-use,etc.
This would provide an organized feedback to the various code committees. Right now, all we are left with is to complain amongst ourselves to no effective outcome or action.
The AISC code is my favorite of all the material specific codes. It's fairly short, and the majority of the changes they made in the current revision are for simplification or to provide additional design options (the old options are still available).
Also, what other code is totally free? If you want a hard copy, just print it out. The only thing you have to pay for is the design manual (which is hugely usefull, but you don't need it to design per the code).
“2010 AISC” just happens to appear in the title to WillisV’s thread, otherwise the major problem exists with the whole codes process these days. The entire code process has become a very expensive, profitable for some, job creating for others, industry unto itself. It is only tangentially related to the original intent of codes; which was to provide some uniformity in design of infrastructure, assure some degree of health, safety and reliability in that design process, and to pass on significant improvements in our design knowledge and understanding of the various building materials. And, for goodness sakes, I’m not against real improvements in the process, in our understanding of structures, materials and loadings, and necessary changes when a problem area is found. I generally agree with SAIL3's and a2mfk’s rants, the current code cycling is really not improving the process for most end users or the end products. And, I also tend to agree with Gumpmaster, for the reasons he cites. Maybe AISC actually heard the clamor over the last couple revisions and new editions. The design manual shouldn’t have to change every three years either, and maybe the latest printing would actually have some of the errors corrected. There are plenty of smart engineers out there who are often willing to share improved design aids and spread sheets if only the ink would dry on them before the next code made them obsolete.
Who’s driving this train? Certainly not the users of the codes, their life is made much more complicated, for very little measurable improvement in the end product. We don’t even get real serious finger prints on the code pages before that edition is outdated, the design process is certainly more complex and time consuming, and we’ve been put in a position where there probably aren’t many designs out there, such that if push-comes-to-shove, another party can’t find some errors in our work, to make a big deal out of. After all, ‘he didn’t follow the code’ trumps all. The code producing organizations, the researchers, the printers, the software producers, all make money off of this, while we go broke buying new editions of codes which make our work much more complex but don’t produce a significantly better final design.
A survey on codes might be of some interest here, maybe by country, but I think the real place to attack this issue, is at our city, county, and state building departments and legislatures, and through more local or national professional organizations. We must do this as a united group of design professionals, by explaining to the powers-that-be that if they don’t adopt the next edition of the IBC, for example, building will not start falling down around them. If they do adopt the new version their structures will likely get more expensive, take longer to produce, and offer no significant improvements over the existing version of the codes. In discussions with some building officials, they are as disgusted and frustrated with the process and changes as we are. For the most part, I think they would join our party.
Let the people pushing the new codes and software sit with a million copies of the newest edition, destined for the landfill, because we just don’t buy them. And, maybe because we have convinced our state building officials and legislators that they don’t have to adopt the next edition of the IBC, some semblance of engineering judgement and experience will return to our profession. And, we might even become more efficient at our part of the work, because we will actually have time to learn to use the code we have in hand, and become more productive with it, rather than spending our time learning the new 400 character formula for some new quantity that we can’t even find defined in the code. I believe this is the general level at which to start this fight, because if the newest IBC doesn’t sell, even though it refers to the newest AISC, ACI, etc. etc., they will all get the message.
Some of the standards and codes I deal with are loose-leaf and updated year-by-year, some are re-issued in bound volumes every few years. One of the drawbacks to the looseleaf approach is that once you incorporate all the 2011 pages into your code, you no longer have a copy of the 2010 code. So for codes and standards where you are expected to use the latest edition, it's great. If somebody expects you to use a specific edition from 10 years ago, it won't work. And of course, the bound-volume and the loose-leaf groups can't agree with each other on how this should work, either.
Seems to me that AISC is a minor offender when it comes to this kind of thing.
At least they're sticking with a five year cycle, not three.
The Spec., design guides, engineering journal, modern steel construction, and a mega-boatload of other technical information is available cheap (or free with membership) and readily downloadable.
They also provide the Solutions Center which generally provides good and free technical support. Not sure if that sort of service is available from ACI, ICC, or ASCE 7. The times I've asked questions of those, I've received zilch. Not even a reply.
Seems to me that the 13th Ed. Spec. and Manual were pretty substantial overhauls of previous ones. I can't think of what I'd call a major revision in ACI or NDS. ASCE 7 changed a lot from 93 to 95 IIRC. Some of those other guys are going every three years also.
dhengr is right on along with some others. Universal acceptance of new codes is not mandatory. The fact that whether you are on a 3 year or 5 year cycle, you have already decided that there will be a new specification in 30 and 60 years. In my opinion, there just isn't enough material or design advancements to justify a new specification every few years. I would suggest it is more likely that we are at the point where we should be tweaking the specs. Every 10 years or so would be more in line, but then again even that would guarantee a new spec in 30 and 60 years.
It a good thing that steel has a longer cycle. It takes more time to digest the changes. Like 271828 says, AISC offers easy access to information. It is clearly necessary. Ever see the questions being asked in Modern Steel Construction after all this time? If only the steel spec was as clear as ACI spec.
Like dhengr says, like minded engineers should convince our local officials that older codes need not be abandoned just because the code writing machines cannot be turned off. I agree that it's time to stop the madness.
