Articles
Technical writing on structural and geotechnical engineering, analysis software, and the tools I build. RSS feed
Cold-Formed Steel Is Not Just Thin Hot-Rolled Steel
Cold-formed steel is governed by a different specification with a different worldview. The behaviors that have no counterpart in hot-rolled work and that will quietly wreck a design if you import the wrong habits.
The Buckling Mode Hot-Rolled Intuition Misses
Cold-formed steel fails in three buckling modes. The third one, distortional buckling, has no hot-rolled analog and governs constantly in thin sections. What it is and how the Direct Strength Method handles it.
Where Is the Neutral Axis, Really?
The neutral axis in a cracked reinforced concrete beam is not where the stress is zero. It is where the strain is zero, and its position is determined by equilibrium.
Using AI to Check an Engineer's Work, Not Do It
The most reassuring AI application in engineering is also the simplest: using it to catch inconsistencies in a submittal package, not to design anything.
Sometimes the Calculator Is the Deliverable
Some clients need a tool that designs, not a single design. What a parametric structural calculator is, why it is harder to build than a one-off analysis, and when it is the right answer.
Then I Did It Again, With an Even Worse File Format
LPile's input format is deliberately hostile: custom floating-point conventions, inconsistent field separators, and required typos. Teaching an AI to handle it anyway.
I Built a CANDE Preprocessor with an AI, Before That Was Easy
The story of building a CANDE mesh editor with AI in early 2025, when there was no agent that would read your repo and build a feature, and what it took to get it right.
What CANDE Is, and When You Actually Need It
Plain-English explanation of what CANDE is, when buried pipe and culvert work actually needs soil-structure interaction analysis, and what the program does and does not do.
Beyond SAP2000: Building an AI Toolkit Across the Whole Deliverable
An honest account of where the automation toolkit stands: what is working, what is in development, and how each piece fits into the deliverable pipeline.
Why I Built an AI Tool That Writes SAP2000 Models
How I built a skill that generates SAP2000 input files from structured descriptions, what it took to make it reliable, and what it does and does not mean for your project.