Waqar Saleem

Dear Ahsan, 1- consider the relieving pressure of soil as your model shows basement. 2- provide stiff element at the edges of raft as there is basement wall all around. 3-increase in thickness also decreases the pressure, check increasing raft thickness. 4-make sure that actual raft area is provided in SAFE, sometimes it is mistakenly considered less when raft is drawn on center points of the columns, actually you should provide the offset of half column width or depth as per condition on edges. 5- check loads applied on the floors, finishes, walls, decrease where-ever you can, make deduction of windows and doors, check if lighter elements are available, decrease thickness of slabs if possible. 6-Add one column in between all grids if possible, 7-offset your columns some distance 2' or 2.5' inwards, ask the architect, share your problem. 4-if none of the above options and solution provided by seniors work, have review of geotech and go for piled raft. Regards

Dear All, Is it possible to tell about a beam section from looking at its top and bottom reinforcement that either it is singly reinforced or doubly reinforced? no other information is provided, only top and bottom bars are provided say 3#4 Top, 3#6 Bottom, B 12"x18" . Regards

Dear Hamza you have to tick the specified load pattern and specify load patterns Dead, Super dead or Live with their multiplier factor or tick the other two, you do not have to tick all three. Regards

Salam Dear Junaid! Cold joints are common and practice is upto soffit, properly roughen the face and apply some chemical at the joint. Leaving column at mid height is not good. Regards

Dear Shafqat Hussain Welcome to the forum. Check what you require at the job and discuss with your seniors, ask them for help if you do not understand something. At first job mostly you don not know exactly what to do but the main engineering profession skill is lifelong learning which comes forward and you learn new things. Contact some senior surveyor for the level and theodolite guidance. Regards

My kid is 2 nd 3 months old, we normally try to keep screen time as low as 1 hour/ 2 hour, when he watches cartoon or use mobile for game more than 2 hours, he becomes too difficult to handle. So we bought books that we read with him like picture stories and take him outside where he can play, run and climb monkey bar etc, after playing he becomes satisfied and easy to handle. that's my personal experience :-). Regards

Salam Makhzumi Screen time should be minimum but it should be replaced by healthy outdoor activities. Children become addicted to screens that's dangerous, we can not force them to reduce there screen time but provide them with healthy alternatives can change there interest. Regards

if they insist for dwg provide them along-with pdf, take receiving on this pdf printout.

yes, in Pakistan some authorities require soft CAD copy. Provide them read-only CAD file, they can not alter or tamper it. Regards

Muneeb, here is my view though seniors have explained above nicely. 1.what is the value of subgrade modulus ? in some cases using subgrade modulus with 2" settlement solve the issue of over-stressing under foundation. As normally value for the SM given is with 1" settlement when we calculate by the formula given in Bowles, as Geotech to provide you the value or simply multiply the value by 2 which is calculated from the bearing capacity 0.5*3*12*2204*2 lb/ft^3 . 2. if you have basement then assign stiff to the foundation under rcc basement wall. 3.check your applied loads, make them realistic and compare with reactions, check your load combinations; sometimes load combos are assigned greater factors mistakenly or by abrupt system shutdown induce some error in them. 4. increasing thickness of raft also decreases bearing pressure, try. Regards

Dear Jaher Make a grid for the required wall and draw the wall in elevation or 3d view, in plan view slanted wall will not be drawn. Regards

Dear Jaher I guess, It is possible to have a slanted shear wall if it is properly connected at different levels, and modelling is also possible in etabs or sap.Regards

Salam Members, Congratulations to Engineers, PEC has become full signatory of Washington Accord, what are the benefits to Pakistani engineers for this agreement. Regards

Muneeb, if mass source is not defined properly, seismic forces will not be calculated correctly and so the base shear value will also be incorrect. Selecting different options in mass source menu is quite fine if loads has been taken in consideration as mentioned above 100% dead and 25% live in case of warehouses or permanent live loads. Regards

This polls concludes that on this forum majority is from NUST :-), other universities are doing very good job in engineering development as well.

Salam i would like to ask how much minimum investment is required and what is the return rate? or what should be minimum amount to start investing in PSA for a reasonable return?

Salam Request to the admin and open to comments/suggestions from other senior members. I suggest there should be an open monthly/bi-monthly/tri-monthly meeting of forum, city based, with the members available in different areas of the country. This is necessary to improve the activity on the forum as well as concrete output from the discussions on the forum. At first Rawalpindi/Islamabad City circle may arrange a meeting after eid , i propose the date 8th,9th july, second weekend after eid. Out-city members are also invited to attend the meeting.

i volunteer myself for any kind of job for the SEFP !!! i can convince some members also to whom i have personal interaction.

Thats great!!! SEFP VIP i liked most.

footing is of 6ft thickness for which i proposed more than 2 layers of temp/shrinkage reinf.

this provision is not applicable to minimum shrinkage temperature requirements case. temperature/shrinkage reinforcement should be placed in 2 or 3 layers from top to bottom, because just two layers at top and bottom will not serve the purpose and shrinkage cracks will definitely propagate.

A catastrophic event of landslide, slope cutting without protection is very dangerous, one should avoid or keep proper considerations. VID-20170511-WA0009[1].mp4

apply same modifiers in safe as in etabs then check

Thought provoking article, however there are a few queries which need further consideration: (1) The reinforcement is always being provided in slabs for negative moment both along the beam and perpendicular to beam. Due to availability of sophisticated software’s such as ETABs and SAFE, this reinforcement is provided based on compatible behavior of slab and beams. Moreover, concrete shall crack in tension (may be at service level gravity loads) and reaches/crosses the rebar yield strength (at ultimate strength considering DBE earthquake level) both in beam and slabs simultaneously as slab load is going to beam/columns. Therefore, it is realistic to assume same stiffness modifier of 0.35 for both slab and beams in case of two-way beam slab flooring system. Thus, underestimation of demands in beams is not understandable. (2) Crack control width may be checked at ultimate load, if it is OK at strength level, it will be automatically OK at service level. However, if you provide the cover and reinforcement spacing/diameter as per serviceability limit of code, then crack control width may not be an issue at the service level and ultimate level loads for given size of cross section and spans. (3) The concrete shall crack when its tensile strength exhausted and this will happen in most of the cases even well below the service level gravity loads, therefore it is hard to justify the modification factor of 1 especially for flexural members such as beams. (4) This is not clear how structural performance will improve if we design with modification factors of 1.0. The earthquake resistant design philosophy relies on ductility i.e.: plastic hinges are allowed at the base of the wall and columns and at the end of beams. The plastic hinges are not allowed in the columns. The modification factor of 1.0 will increase flexural strength of beams much more than the seismic flexural demand. This will not allow the beam to yield/development of plastic hinges in case of design level earthquake and there is pretty much chance of shifting the plastic hinge mechanism to the columns ends in several stories converting them to soft stories, drift concentration and failure.So, designing beams for modification factors of 1.0 in all members contradicts the earthquake resistant design philosophy and one need to reconsider the “R” factor for these cases to (a) avoid development of plastic hinges in columns (b) forces foundation. (Article is written with a fruitful discussion with my Senior Colleague Dr.Munir Ahmed,)

it depend on the project type(steel, concrete, building, bridge etc) and quantity of work. steel fabrication drawings are more time consuming and higher rates (fabrication draftsmen are less) while rcc structure shop drawings are comparatively less time consuming and have less charges. it can not be said the just drawings will cost 0.5-1% of project cost, it is possible for some projects, it is too much for just drafting of big projects.