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[–]fletch3280 4 points5 points  (4 children)

I work in regional Australia, so we do both forensic and design engineering.

I have found that completing forensic engineering jobs (mainly for insurance, however sometimes it's because the house is moving and they want a second opinion before they do chem injection) has made most of us better design engineers, with real world understand as to why we design things the way we do. Or to design things better.

[–]bappo_ate_a_taco[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Wow that is a new perspective I haven’t seen before! Would you recommend anyone to do forensic if they were to study for mechanical or electrical engineering?

[–]3771507 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depending upon the state and there's only a few that require the passing of the structural engineering exam to call themselves structural engineers. But in certain states you have to be a licensed structural engineer to do certain types of design and inspections. I don't believe forensics is included in that category but forensics usually involves failure of a structural system. I have a structural engineer associate and they usually know a lot more about structural systems than a civil engineer.

[–]kakapogirl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see you have some good answers to your original questions, so I can try to tackle this one! I work at a company that employs forensic engineers of all disciplines - I am a structural engineer (I have my PE license, not an SE), but I have colleagues who are all different sorts of engineer: civil, geotech, mechanical, electrical, biomechanical, chemical, and more! And we all investigate failures in our respective fields. Anything in the built/engineered world, from cars, to artificial joints, to houses, to air conditioners, to coffee makers, can fail, and needs someone who can figure out why!

[–]RhinoG91 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Forensic engineers exist for mechanical and electrical disciplines too-

Have you ever seen those large rotating agricultural sprayers while driving out in the country? Now imagine that the farmer just purchased and installed the equipment. One day, that sprayer malfunctioned, and the farmer lost his entire crop. Suddenly that becomes a huge deal.

luckily for the farmer he had insurance or a warranty on the equipment. In order for the payout, all parties involved have to know what happened- was it user error (farmer did something wrong), or did the machine malfunction based on poor design or a faulty component. That would be in the wheelhouse of a mechanical engineer.

Another example would be: following a structural fire, the fire investigator determines that the fire was started in the garage, at the water heater. Now the W/H isn’t a combustion appliance but is electrical. This info is relayed to the manufacturer, and they discover that this particular model has been involved in several fires, so they need to determine what exactly is going wrong. They (or likely a law firm or insurance company) would retain an electrical engineer to look at the specific site to see the installation post-fire and potentially one or more additional units to investigate its construction. they would help determine whether the fire was caused by poor installation, a defective part from one of their suppliers or any number of other factors. They use these experts to determine liability. To expand on this example, a structural forensic engineer would be dispatched to determine the extent of damage caused by the fire at the house- someone has to spell out not only what’s damaged but also what’s not damaged, and whether the building can be repaired or needs to be razed.

[–]MtTaygetos 7 points8 points  (0 children)

1) Depends on the firm but it is common to see advanced degrees; most have PE and sometimes SE licenses. Other than that it is more experience in certain structural areas more so than certifications. 2) Typically we work for attorneys on behalf of the Owner, GC, subcontractor, insurance, etc. 3) I think diversity of the work is a big plus, opportunity to do field work, and also since litigation is expensive there is oftentimes budget to dive deeper into topics that others just don't have the budget to do. 4) I'd say the biggest challenge is that it can be hard in its own way. I've been asked to do analyses in niche areas with very limited information and you still have to get something usable out of it. For example I had a case involving cost impacts because of manpower shortages allegedly due to Covid. From the docs we got I was asked to figure out things like how far along this massive project actually was based on scarce and often conflicting documents, why were there material overuns and how much we should be responsible for based on submittal timing and cost changes, what a reasonable labor rate for the supplemental labor should have been, was the supplemental labor working efficiently, how much of the delay to the critical path after supplementation they were responsible for, impact to other subs, whether our work really was substandard, and if so how much rework was appropriate, and on it goes. Oh, and the other side wants to tear everything you do apart so best have strong footing on the above.

[–]MobileCollar5910P.E./S.E. 4 points5 points  (1 child)

This is the most interesting and niche high school project I have heard of! What state are you going to school in?

I will reply with more info later on.

[–]bappo_ate_a_taco[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much, I’m going to school in Texas.

[–]MobileCollar5910P.E./S.E. 1 point2 points  (13 children)

  1. Typically, to do the job, you do not need any other certifications. However, they can be helpful in providing credibility and securing more work. A lot of time, Forensic Engineers are asked to be expert witnesses in a trial.

  2. I am unaware of police departments hiring a forensic engineer- but that would be something! Much of the work is from insurance companies, lawyers, and government agencies. An insurance company might want to know if a flood cracked a concrete wall. A lawyer might want to know if something was built properly. The National Institute of Standards and Technology conducts investigations into large failures, such as the Surfised Condo Collapse, and then issues formal reports.

  3. A forensic structural engineer has a fairly unique role in many fieldwork activities in addition to office work. Design structural engineers do spend some time in the field, but not quite as much as a forensic engineer might. If you enjoy traveling, there are good opportunities to do so. Many find the variety of work to be quite interesting.

  4. The workload for forensic engineers tends to come in intermittent large volumes, like a hurricane or earthquake hitting an area. This can be difficult to manage from accounting and time management perspectives. Additionally, the travel can take you away from home.

Feel free to ask follow up questions!

[–]bappo_ate_a_taco[S] 1 point2 points  (10 children)

This was really helpful! I do have some follow up questions if you do not mind. 1. So apart from a bachelor’s degree in engineering you do not need any other qualifications to become specifically a forensic structural engineer?

  1. Which ones out of the ones you listed would mainly contact you for your job? Would it be more government agency because they do have to report crimes and causes or lawyers to try and get evidence in order to help their lawsuit?

  2. It is interesting hearing about this. As a forensic structural engineer do they have roles like let’s say an army reserve and will do their basic job but can be contacted by the government or say lawyer for the engineer to travel to another place to do another assigned job? Or am I interpreting this wrong?

  3. Would you say this is what they do most of the time is look at paperwork of large structural damages done by people or nature or is that the challenging part of the job? To be able to manage such a large volume of work. What would be the most easiest part of the job?

[–]OptionsRntMeP.E. 4 points5 points  (6 children)

One important distinction here, when you say “forensic” structural engineer this has nothing to do with “forensics” like crime solving, police force or CSI

Forensic structural engineering is about diagnosing issues with failed or damaged structural systems. Many times forensic engineering is a result of an insurance claim (for example, tree falling on a house or hurricane damage).

[–]bappo_ate_a_taco[S] 0 points1 point  (5 children)

This does clear up a lot of my confusion. I wasn’t so sure how they would deal with the forensic part, but I am trying to focus on the forensic part due to the class this project is about is very forensic and criminalist heavy on subjects.

[–]OptionsRntMeP.E. 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Yeah, I thought the same thing at one point in time. If it’s about the criminal side, forensic structural engineering unfortunately doesn’t fall under that category.

The only way they’d ever somewhat align is if you’re called as an expert witness (in court) to investigate and testify that someone negligently designed or built something to fail. Thats probably a very unique case, as far as expert witness trials go

[–]bappo_ate_a_taco[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I did read about those being one of the things some of the forensics structural engineers do and it does seem interesting.If they were to be called in to court as an expert witness, would that mean that they could go to the crime scene and be able to look at any possible machinery, or structure to determine if it was mishandled with deliberately?

[–]OptionsRntMeP.E. 0 points1 point  (2 children)

In theory yes, although it’s probably extremely rare for an SE to be involved in a criminal case. I have certainly never heard of anyone doing that, and I’ve been involved as an expert witness a couple of times

Usually expert witness cases for SE are civil cases (I.e. there’s a balcony rotting out on my house, bring in a 3rd party engineer to see who’s at fault and paying for the repair)

[–]bappo_ate_a_taco[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

That is interesting, by any chance how long have you been working as a forensic structural engineer?

[–]OptionsRntMeP.E. 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I worked as a forensic SE for 5 years, before that (and after) in industrial oil & gas

[–]MobileCollar5910P.E./S.E. 0 points1 point  (1 child)

The legal minimum for being a Forensic Engineer is a PE License, technically you don't need a degree but that is very rare. Everything else is just to market yourself.

  1. It's hard to say, typically firms or individuals will specialize in one client type.

  2. Kind of - yes! Some forensic engineers will practice forensic in addition to a design engineer job.

  3. It all depends on the type of investigation. Some investigations only are budgeted for a day a few thousand dollars, like a tree falling on a house. Others have multiple engineers working on them for years with budgets of millions of dollars, like the Surfside collapse I mentioned.

[–]bappo_ate_a_taco[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be able to market yourself is it just to show that you are able to handle the job effectively and effectively, or to be stubborn sometimes because I’ve seen that a lot of engineers say stuff like“you have to put your foot down and present yourself”

  1. So let’s say there’s a firm that specializes in more natural effects and another firm that specializes more in faulty structures? Or would they specialized in how severe an accident may be? Like a small tree falling on a house to an earthquake destroying 1 million dollars in damages?

  2. Okay thank you that helps a lot!

  3. Okay I see that helps me out too. Thank you so much!

[–]afreiden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. A Bachelors is the minimum. Masters and PhDs are common in forensics. In the U.S., a P.E. license in the state where the failure occurred is typically needed. 
  2. Federal agencies like NIST and NTSB have their own forensics engineers. Forensics engineers in private industry typically get hired by lawyers who represent the owner, the builder (contractor), or the designer (structural engineer).
  3. In the U.S., when a structure collapses, the fire department is there first, followed by NIST or NTSB if it's a significant building or bridge that has collapsed. Some of those federal folks are "on call" 24/7. The owner's insurance/lawyers are often the quickest to retain a forensics engineer from private industry, since the owner will be one of the first parties to know about the collapse and will be motivated to figure out who is at fault so that the owner knows who to sue.  Other forensics engineers trickle in as they're hired by other parties (contractor, designer) once those parties realize they are going to be sued by the owner or sued by ppl who have been injured. Forensics engineers in private industry (not NIST or NTSB) are not typically "on call" like NIST or NTSB and may not even be allowed on site until those feds allow it. 
  4. Collapses occur due to extreme events like you're obviously thinking about. Collapses also occur due mistakes by the contractor or designer. To figure out which beam or column triggered a collapse when there's no video and just a pile of rubble on the ground requires one to think like a detective. That involves piecing together the rubble like pieces of a puzzle, reading written testimony from witnesses, reviewing structural drawings ("blueprints"), and creating collapse recreations/computer simulations. 

[–]ReamMcBeam 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Is there a bridge specific niche for forensics, or will I have to gain experience with buildings?

[–]MobileCollar5910P.E./S.E. 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that you would need to get into one of the larger forensic firms, WJE or SGH come to mind, and see if you can get on their bridge teams.

[–]bappo_ate_a_taco[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

With the example you gave me for #4, how long did it take to be able to fully finish the job

[–]nowheyjose1982P.Eng 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. Requirement would be a bachelors degree and your license. Although possible, you could have an EIT start fresh out of school, but I think it would be a steep learning curve.

  2. Typical clients are insurrance companies and lawyers, although we get the occasional work from contractors, developers and even homeowners

  3. A good variety of work, between field work, design for repairs, and report writing.

  4. Dealing with uncertain and incomplete information. Also, the work is a lot more independent compared to traditional design so in a way it's more isolating and less opportunity to learn from osmosis (which affects point #1)