This article from this month’s Engineers Australia magazine is by a young design engineer who talks about the importance of site visits for inexperienced designers. Visiting a construction site where your design is being constructed can be a steep learning experience.
The biggest point he alluded to is constructability of the design. By that I mean that whatever you design needs to be able to be built. If it’s too complicated or fiddly or downright impossible, you may experience some of that “slightly more descriptive” language that was mentioned. But don’t take offence at that (that’s just how they are) – use it as a learning experience.
I’ve experienced the particular example given where a reinforcement steel fixer complains that they are unable to construct a unit as it is shown in the drawing. There are a few things structural designers need to consider when designing reinforced concrete / precast units (for reinforcement in particular).
- N32+ size rebars are very heavy to carry. If you have a concrete unit say 18m long and this bar is to go on the top of a 1.5m high wall, you might need 5 steelfixers to carry it and hold it in position while it is being tied. If there is the possibility of using more of a smaller size bar, do it, purely for manual handling reasons. Obviously if it doesn’t give you the required capacity you can’t, but at least consider it.
- Reinforcement does not come bent at a sharp 90 degrees like it is drawn on the design drawings. When it is made, reinforcement is bent around a pin so it has a radius – there is a curvature. If you have double layer reinforcement in a unit, this could make things very unpleasant for the steelfixer.
- You can’t have 2 x 90 degree bends in close proximity to each other. In practice, as mentioned above, this is made into a U-bar around a pin to suit. So when you are dealing with pull-out bars that have to be flush with the face of the concrete, it might not always be that easy.
- Don’t have too much reinforcement in one location! You have to realise that when the concrete is poured, it has to go between and bond with the reinforcement. If it’s designed such that you have a wall of reinforcement, well it’s just not going to do what it is supposed to.
Why Construction Workers Should Wear Long Sleeve PPE
After completing their university degree, most engineering graduates tend to go into one of two lines of work:
1. Engineering Design – I’ve been told approximately 10% of engineers end up in this area. I find this a little bit surprising because there is a group of us from uni that hang out together regularly and out of us 80% are working for a design consultancy.
2. Project Management – At uni we were told 90% of engineers end up working in the field. Apart from approximately half a year in the office I’ve spent about 5 years working on site as a construction engineer or “project engineer” as opposed to a structural/civil or design engineer. (It seems that regardless of one’s discipline, those that work in design refer to their discipline in their title and those that work in the field are just project engineers – weird)
Design Engineer Career Path
The way I see it sometimes is – if you’re a designer you tend to spend pretty much all your time in the office, calculating, designing, drawing etc. As time goes on you move up the ladder to managing other designers. There is the risk of not having a good feel for constructability. When you get bogged down in the detailed design you sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture or design a structure such that it is difficult and/or expensive to build.
But design can be fun. I did a little bit of design as a graduate and really enjoyed being “smart” about it – writing spreadsheets that do quick calculations for me such that I can design a bridge very quickly. I had no idea about construction and I struggled with that – it is just something that has to come with experience.
Project Engineer Career Path
I worked mainly in the field on projects involving the construction of roads and reservoirs. As a project engineer I was exposed to a massive range of experience. I personally enjoyed it a lot more than design work. It was more challenging. I was exposed to managing people, safety, quality, technical queries (liasing with designers), commercial, procurement and basically interfacing with every other area found in an engineering construction company.
As I move up the “food chain” in the company, I feel like I can jump into any area of management I choose and excel at it. I can step into a project management role or a commercial manager role for example. I feel like I have a more diverse range of skills. On the flip side, working away from home for an extended period of time can get tiring and if you have a family, working closer to home would probably start looking more attractive.
Project Engineering: The Essential Toolbox for Young Engineers
