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NEW STRUCTURAL DESIGN SEMINARS

Well, we're registered, so we knew enough about structural design at one point in our lives to pass the exam.  Do we still have the confidence to design at least the simple beams?

The Chapter will be giving two seminars in May as refresher courses to remind us of what we may have forgotten, and to teach us the new Code requirements that impact our load analyses.

The presenters will be two structural engineers from DiSalvo Ericson Group of Ridgefield, CT.  The lead teacher is Trevor B. Hill, P.E., an RPI trained engineer who came to the profession after ten years as a carpenter.  His grasp of wood framing as a carpenter first is a rare and desirable qualification for an engineer.  Mr. Hill's colleague at DiSalvo Ericson, Pat Conlon, P.E., will co-teach the class.

The class will be primarily geared to wood frame construction, and the type of structural design architects might be expected to perform in their own offices for a residential or light commercial project.  We want to remove a wall and the jack post for the new header beam will fall some place over the center beam of the basement, but not over the column.  Can you analyze whether the beam in the basement can sustain the load?  Thanks to Prof. Y.S. Lee at Pratt in 1972 (I've kept my notes), I can still find this answer, but in 27 years of private practice I've only had one employee that could find the answer to this simple problem, even with kids less than two years out of school.  Hopefully, after this seminar we can all perform these simple computations.

The seminars will be on the first and third Thursdays of May at the Holiday Inn in Mount Kisco.  The first will be a 7-hour class, the second, 4 hours.  Expect to see a registration flyer soon.

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