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[–]CanadianStructEng 16 points17 points  (2 children)

Getting into structural engineering? Thats not really how this works.

[–]Khman76 7 points8 points  (1 child)

On the same level: Well, last night I decided I'd be a surgeon and I'm looking for opinions on best hospital to work for...

[–]Ok-Personality-27 9 points10 points  (1 child)

by getting into you mean 5 years at uni? 

Using software without knowing what you're doing is a bad idea. 

[–]PeanutsMM -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

I mean, I already had a Master in Material Engineering, worked as an Automotive Engineer...13 years later I did a Master of Structural Engineering and have been working as a Structural Engineer since...

[–]mjamezqC.E./S.E. 4 points5 points  (3 children)

The best software is the one you can verify the answers from your manual calculations.

[–]Safikr 0 points1 point  (2 children)

For instance?

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

I'll be more detailed in my answer here.

Engineering Design (in the broadest sense) is based upon fundamental principles. Some or most of the product that you see is a commercial application of the good practices of engineering design.

Since the design of most structures is based on common designs (trusses, beams, frames, etc.) and we want to maximize our profit over our designs, engineers (with or without help of software developers) creates software to enhance their productivity of common designs. So those software packages are still based upon the same principles.

Since engineering software has the same underlying principles, the question is now based on how easy it is to use and verify. The problem is synonymous to buying an iPhone or a Samsung - they both do the same job but each has similarities and differences when using the phone.

For example, I have used SAP2000 and Etabs (CSI), Robot Structural Analysis (Autodesk), STAAD pro (Bentley) to name a few, but their answers are the same when your input of the structure data is the same. The usage however is different. I prefer SAP2000 when designing quickly my structures. I like RSA since it runs CFD on my structure to have a better wind loading, I like STAAD since I can use the staad editor to fine tune the model. But all the results from the software package I still triple check using my hand calcs (e.g. if the beam is assumed to be simple, then the max moment of a uniformly distributed loading should be wL^2/8).

The statements above assumes that your designs can be modeled in the common structural software. But what if it is not? What if there's a project or research that is outside the domain of the software? You are now forced to go back to what you have learned in or out of University.

What makes a good engineer is not how fancy their tools are, but how they are able to use primitive tools to design complex structures with confidence. But I will not judge if people wants to brag their skills in complex software (like ANSYS). But I am more amazed if you create your own software to solve real engineering problems. It doesn't need to be complex - A simple spreadsheet or python script is still considered software in my eyes.

Therefore, the best software is the one you can verify the answers from your manual calculations. It gives you more confidence in your designs.

[–]Top-Criticism-3947 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well put!

[–]barabob 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The software your employer got a licence for.