Articles
Technical writing on structural and geotechnical engineering, analysis software, and the tools I build. RSS feed
Reading an Existing Structure Before You Analyze It
A condition assessment stands or falls on the site visit. What to measure, how to tell distress that is progressing from movement that finished years ago, and why recording what you could not see belongs in the report.
What a Shop Drawing Review Actually Checks
A fabricator sends a submittal and asks a licensed engineer to review it. What that engagement covers, what it does not transfer, and the five findings that come up over and over.
Why I Take the Jobs Big Firms Turn Down
Most firms decline small engineering jobs because the economics do not work for them. Here is why they work for me, and what to expect if you bring me the bounded task others have declined.
When Do You Actually Need PLAXIS?
PLAXIS is powerful and frequently unnecessary. When established hand methods are the right answer, when genuine soil-structure interaction demands finite element analysis, and why the inputs deserve more attention than the output.
When the Dirt Is Not Good Enough
When a site's soil cannot support a shallow foundation, piles are not the only answer. Ground improvement methods and when they are more economical than driving through the bad material.
How a Pile Resists a Sideways Shove
Lateral load controls most sign and pole foundations. Why hand calculations fall short, how LPile and GROUP solve the nonlinear beam-on-springs problem, and when you need each.
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 the line of zero strain, and equilibrium determines where it sits. Why the cracked region has nothing to do with it.
Using AI to Check an Engineer's Work
The most reassuring application of artificial intelligence in engineering is also the simplest: using it to catch inconsistencies in a submittal package.
Sometimes the Calculator Is the Deliverable
Some clients need a tool that designs rather than one finished 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
The LPile input format is unusually difficult: custom floating-point conventions, inconsistent field separators, and required typographical errors. Teaching a language model 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 artificial intelligence in early 2025, when there was no agent that would read a repository 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 means for your project.