Design Guides for New Grad 1

[EngDM]

Hey all,

I'm based in Canada, and I've started to get deep into structural design. I want to collect a few more textbooks or design guides to use as reference and study to familiarize myself with common procedures.

So far I have the "Reinforced Concrete Design: A Practical Approach (3rd Edition) by Svetlana Brzev" for concrete design.

I've got the 11th Edition blue book for steel (HSC) as well as the red book (CDH) and the Wood design manual.

For the latter 3, I'm hoping to find some books with more design examples and some niche cases, not just a simplified condition to make the solution quick and easy.

I plan to get "The Analysis of Irregular Shaped Structures Diaphragms and Shear Walls" to learn some different methods for shear walls (I hope CSA O86 accepts the solution methods provided in here).

But yea, if you have any suggestions for some books, and what they are really good at doing/explaining that is much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[skeletron]

STEEL

MASONRY (although slightly outdated)

Engineering Guide for Wood Frame Construction (although it has a bunch of errata...I wish they would update)

And then also look at CRSI

 

[JStephen]

Roark's Formulas For Stress and Strain comes in handy for assorted oddball stuff.

 

[dhengr]

EngDM :
What did you do with your text books from college, one would assume they were fairly current, they were by good authors, you are familiar with them and their terminology and nomenclature. They should be your go-to books to start with, you are familiar with them. Then look for codes, guides and manuals from any of the building material associations, steel, welding, bolting, concrete, reinforcing, prestressing, masonry, timber, steel deck, etc. They generally have a wealth of info. about that material and methods, and are in part, the basis for the more convoluted building codes. Then, handbooks on various subjects, Struct. or Mech. Engineering, Tall Bldgs., Parking Structures, Bridges, etc. Get a few good Engineering Mechanics and Strength of Materials textbooks. Lincoln Electric (Arc Welding Found.) has several really good books by Omer W. Blodgett on welding and gen. struct./mech. design and fabrication. Look at the book shelves of the senior engineers in your office and ask them which are most useful. Then, get some experience working with them, under their direction and guidance, because books alone, won’t replace that experience.

 

[EngDM]

What did you do with your text books from college, one would assume they were fairly current, they were by good authors, you are familiar with them and their terminology and nomenclature. They should be your go-to books to start with, you are familiar with them. Then look for codes, guides and manuals from any of the building material associations, steel, welding, bolting, concrete, reinforcing, prestressing, masonry, timber, steel deck, etc. They generally have a wealth of info. about that material and methods, and are in part, the basis for the more convoluted building codes. Then, handbooks on various subjects, Struct. or Mech. Engineering, Tall Bldgs., Parking Structures, Bridges, etc. Get a few good Engineering Mechanics and Strength of Materials textbooks. Lincoln Electric (Arc Welding Found.) has several really good books by Omer W. Blodgett on welding and gen. struct./mech. design and fabrication. Look at the book shelves of the senior engineers in your office and ask them which are most useful. Then, get some experience working with them, under their direction and guidance, because books alone, won’t replace that experience.

I kept all of my structural textbooks, however most of the examples presented in classes weren't done from a textbook, or rather they might have been but the book wasn't a listed or required reading.

 

[cvg]

here are a couple lists. if you search you will find more lists

thread507-362746
thread507-36128

 

[Enable]

Being Canadian I imagine you used Hibbler for structural analysis but I've found An Introduction to Structural Analysis by Jeffrey Erochko somewhat superior in its clarity. It's also available free online here (though it gets muddled by the adds / website format) or else you can buy the paper copy for a reasonable $35 CND.

As for material specific texts I would recommend obtaining them as you need rather than trying to bulk up a library so to speak. If you want to learn the trade the very best thing you can do is try to analyze a real-life structure. Find something, anything and analyze it! It could be that on your next walk you note an interesting structure and take some pictures; it doesn't have to be a big structure (actually a moderate to small size is better). Then, build a model of the skeleton and how you think it might be framed and start trying to analyze/design the thing. Question every single step in the process, and any time you get stuck ask a senior for advice or feel free to come here and ask. Then continue...until the next question.

Only by experiencing the "huh...wtf do I do here" will you actually start to learn the trade. Reading texts, even practically oriented ones, can only do so much. Once you have the basic instincts down is when those texts become extremely valuable, but until then, just try to design some stuff! You'd be surprised at how many things in our day to day builds are not fully understood but work well enough, and textbooks arn't the best at teaching that.

 

[milkshakelake]

Feel free to shoot down this take, but here's a different approach. Check out the Structural Engineering Reference Manual. That's all you need for now. If you can eventually do it with your eyes closed, you'll be set for most things and know where to move from there. It's very basic but still not easy. I bet that even if you're as deep into engineering as you say, you still can't get through the whole thing on the first pass. As a side effect of using the book, you'll naturally end up grabbing whatever codes you need to accomplish the basic tasks.

When you mention "The Analysis of Irregular Shaped Structures Diaphragms and Shear Walls", it's very dense and in-depth, and it's better studied as a third step; second step would be Breyer's Design of Wood Structures. I found that when I collect too many textbooks and jump steps, it's hard to get good. Focus on the SERM and move on from there, one book at a time.

 

[Agent666]

While not Canadian, AISC design guides are good, as is SCI guides in the UK (mostly all free).

https://www.aisc.org/publications/design-guides/design-guide-pdfs/

https://www.steelconstruction.info/Eurocode_Design_Guides

Nehrp tech briefs are also a great primer on a range of subjects.

https://www.nehrp.gov/library/techbriefs.htm

https://engineervsheep.com