PEMB buildings from China? Engineering? 2

[Bradley5]

We are working on a couple projects with PEMB buildings. We primarily have only done the engineered footing work for such buildings on the past. A guy in the office reached out to a building supplier to find out they drop ship the building kit right from China? I am now very curious if this is how many are being fabricated and sold? I got on the phone to ask about engineered plans and he said "you may need to have an engineer in your state stamp the plans". In which I asked if they even have a P.E. on staff to stamp 'anything'. In short, I am questioning what we are getting into with that? We do hold a P.E. license but was not planning a budget around having to engineer the structure. I guess I am envisioning 'plans' showing up in Chinese symbols, and no quality data at all.

Anyone run into this? If this is how many are getting done, is there a reputable supplier that does in fact provide real engineering?

 

[Lomarandil]

Evaluating a design using a planset in a different language isn't that hard... I've managed it in a handful of languages I don't know. Plus as Dik mentions, a lot of foreign engineering happens using loan words from other languages, often english.

Checking calcs in another language is another story, but I'd be building my own calcs (with reference to theirs), so neither here nor there.

 

[human909]

I would be curious how that is purchased and evaluated? Do you get foreign calcs? Are these Chinese or something more substantial like German? I think it's one thing when bringing in a high quality item. Quite another knowing full well a foreign purchase is a cost cutting tactic. As I always say, China will cut every corner they can, so then you have to go find them. But some stuff is built pretty well. Like they literally did a good job of "copying" a USA design they ripped off.

Foreign built thin sheet silos are a pre-engineered commodity item in a highly competitive business exporting across Europe, Asia, Africa etc... North America probably has its own internal market but the rest of the world is very much global. These things are like ikea furniture but much bigger and more expensive. Getting calcs is abnormal but sometimes it can be done, but you certainly don't get a full picture. But the savings are definitely there to afford the engineering fees, so importing them and then certifying them is still an economical outcome.

To evaluate these I start from first principle and go from there. Silos are hard. But once you start getting a feel for them like all things, they become easier. One supplier accidentally sent me their Excel sheet that through a series of macros does the entire design of their silos from ~4m-12m and ~4-40m tall. That certainly made things a little easier to assess their silos once I had translated it and dissected it.

I would be curious what approach you used to assess the PEMB? Sounds like the typical case where a building got done, then the code guy wanted papers.....?

Straight forward calculations like I would design any building all the members were off the shelf cold formed items. I ran the calcs, found no way on each they could be justified even if you try to be clever with plastic design etc... So I made my assessment it was inadequate. And yes it was a case where the building got done and the 'guy' wanted papers. Though in this case the 'guy' was a site owned by a multinational company and knew they had screwed up by building an inadequate structure and without even getting the required permits to build. So they were more than happy to get the job done properly. (For what it was worth the structure was a medium sized maintenance shed that I'd happily have on my farm. But in no way could it meet current building codes for its intended use.)