Design Criteria -part 1

It's very important to fill up the Design Criteria before you proceed with STAAD analysis. 

The Design Criteria basically contains all the assumptions that the designer use in the design such as, Reference Code, Dead Load, Live Load, Seismic Load, Soil Data, Materials and Design Constants.

Reference Code

Here are the usual Reference Code that we use.

1. National building Code of the Philippines (NBCP)

2. National Structual Code of the Philippines NSCP 2010, 6th Edition volume 1 - for vertical structures

3. National Structual Code of the Philippines NSCP 2010, volume 2 - for horizontal structures

Here are some other codes that we use as reference and guide for the design.

4. National Building Code of the Philippines

5. 2010 National Structural Code of the Philippines Volumes 1 & 2

6. National Plumbing Code of the Philippines

7. American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)

8. American Concrete Institute Manual of Concrete Practice (ACI) 2005

9. American Society of Civil Engineers Manual 7 – 2005

10. Uniform Building Code 1997

11. American Institute Manual of Steel Construction, AISC-360-06

12. Philippine Electrical Code

13. Philippine Mechanical Code

14. Philippine Fire Code

15. AWWA/ ISO Standards

16. AASHTO (Edition as referred to 2010 NSCP)

Dead Load 

Dead Loads, should either be computed separately or be based on table 204-2 (Minimum Design  

Dead Loads) page 2-8 of NSCP 2010, 6th Edition, volume 1 .

Sample of Dead Load Computation for 2 Storey-Residential Building

Live Load

Live Loads, should either be computed separately or be based on table 205-1 (Minimum Uniform and 

Concentrated Live Loads) page 2-10 of NSCP  2010, 6th Edition, volume 1 .

Sample of Live Load Computation for 2 Storey-Residential Building

Becoming a Structural Designer

Not all Civil Engineer can do Structural Design, not even those who top their class in college can easily prepare a structural design if they don't have practice. Believe me I know. I've been practicing my professional career for almost a decade now, and I've tried anything and almost everything there is in this field. Then recently, i had the chance to become a structural engineer and I grabbed it. I thought, if they can, so can I. 

I've worked as Quantity Surveyor doing estimates and attending bids, I've also worked as Site Engineer, then later as Project Manager, then designer in water network, then detailer in design firm, then project director in our own construction firm, then back as a designer of water network for a utility Company, which i technically become an expert of. Recently I was offered a promotion in water network position, at the same time we had an opening for civil/structural engineer of the same level/position, and I choose the later. Without much knowledge with structural design, I took on the next challenge.

A lot of my office mates of course couldn't understand why i choose that, i don't blame them, cause i sometimes couldn't understand myself as well. I'm 30 years old Civil Engineer, who's still a junior Design Engineer in our firm, but i'm giving myself only 1 year to turn the tides. So i'm now in the process of learning, that's why i'm writing this blog to document my learning procedures, hopefully it could be useful to other who suddenly had a change of heart and wanted to try the most challenging and most technical Civil Engineering Specialty.