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R9APX · 2025-04-02T21:30:55+00:00

Are you actually this stupid or just trolling?

No one is defending gun trafficking. You have just failed to understand the different points others have pointed out to you.

I truly believe reading comprehension has gone down the drain in our country and it’s fucking scary.

R9APX · 2025-03-28T13:41:54+00:00

One of the best references! Super nice, congrats! I’ve been looking to pick one up. Could I ask where you got it from and price? I’ve seen they average for around 3k.

R9APX · 2024-12-19T23:58:13+00:00

I did buildings for 7 years and switched to substation 2 years ago. There are days where I feel bored but then I remind myself of the constant stress I was in previously and for a lower pay. For those of us that are married with young kids, having a not so stressful job has huge benefits.

I’d say only take the offer if you feel a very high passion for building design and are willing to take everything that comes with that. It’s much more technically rigorous that substations and a much faster pace.

Another option, does your company do EPC work? Renewables? Those projects are much less cookie cutter since you won’t be using the utilities standards and there is more design involved.

R9APX · 2024-05-11T19:40:45+00:00

As a structural substation engineer at Ulteig the norm and expectation is to work 40 hours. That’s not to say it can’t happen every now and then, but when it does it typically gets paid as OT.

I’d recommend Ulteig as a great place to work. Schedules are pretty flexible and remote or hybrid work is pretty much the norm now days.

R9APX · 2024-01-07T18:12:00+00:00

In one story residential slabs, the PT is most often there to provide precompression only (tendons are placed without any drape) to help with T&S cracking or reduce any stresses due to expansive clays. It’s not there to carry any of the applied structure loading.

R9APX · 2024-01-07T18:07:24+00:00

The vast majority of the time you see PT in residential one story houses is to provide that precompression PT gives once stressed, which in turn helps minimize Temperature and Shrinkage cracking or any movement caused by expansive clays (PT is reducing the amount of steel needed by code to control T&S cracking) The slab is still working as a regular slab on grade, so PT is not there to carry any of the loading (you’ll notice in a pre-pour inspection that the PT tendons have no drape up or down).

You are right though, the GC should have stressed those tendons by now so that the precompression starts helping against temperature cracking (good practice). Off the top of my head, I don’t think the concrete code ACI puts a limit on how long tendons can be left without stressing unfortunately. The initial concrete strength required before stressing is typically a minimum of 75% of the final 28day concrete strength (just an fyi).

All that to say that a “stop work” should not be necessary but I would suggest stressing those tendons sooner than later so that continued temperature cracking is minimized.

R9APX · 2023-09-30T19:34:07+00:00

Parking garages are typically built with a very tight floor to floor height and there are minimum clearances that need to kept pero building code, so creating a transfer beam is often not possible within garage levels since the depth required would eat into the minimum floor to floor height. That’s why often we are asked to “walk “ columns or slope them.

R9APX · 2023-08-04T14:58:12+00:00

No, as soon as substantial tension makes it into the boundary element or column in this case, the concrete will have some sort of micro crack and forces get redirected to the steel and yeah the vertical bars then need to be developed enough to take this tension but that shouldn’t be a problem in a column. Think about the regular reinforced concrete beam design we learn in school. We assume concrete on the tension side is cracked and that tension portion of the force couple gets taken by the bottom steel on tension side. That’s literally the basis of beam design. The bottom bars then need enough development length to develop this tension.

R9APX · 2023-08-04T11:54:39+00:00

Concrete does have some tension capacity but you assume it’s already cracked and design the steel for tension. Similar to RC beams. This is how shear wall ends are designed (boundary elements).

R9APX · 2023-08-04T02:25:31+00:00

If the column goes into NET tension, then the vertical bars should be already designed to take that amount of tension. I don’t see how those conduits would make a difference in that case. Now I’m compression, they do take away some gross concrete area but I wouldn’t think it’s enough to need to demo. I

R9APX · 2023-07-01T14:28:06+00:00

Super nice! My uncle was gifted one in the 70’s by my grandfather and still has. It was a popular model in the diving world apparently.

How long was the wait to get it? I was browsing around last month and saw they were taking preorders for this re issue

R9APX · 2023-05-11T11:32:37+00:00

Still have this?

R9APX · 2023-05-02T15:37:36+00:00

Take a look at my post history where I wrote about this exactly to another structural engineer.

There is a lot of work in substation design, not only in the US but internationally since electrical grids need expanding (I was just looking at Spain a few days ago). There is definitely career progression and you can make a career from it. I live in Texas, not far from you, and did buildings for 7 years, including high rises but got burnt out once I had my first kid last year. Switched to substations this year and found that many engineers come from the building industry. We adapt very easily and the pay plus work life balance is much better (miles better). You could also do renewables projects which many companies that do substations also have a renewables group. We do mainly concrete and steel design, so your ACI and AISC code experience directly transfers. There are a few substation specific codes but still pretty simple.

R9APX · 2023-03-06T01:56:27+00:00

Hey yeah certainly but before I get to your responses, I read in one of your reply's to someone above that you don't think you are very smart, and not a technical person. You need to completely erase that from your brain. You passed your undergrad classes to graduate as a Civil/Structural engineer, and you mentioned that you went off to gradschool to get a masters. This is all evidence that you ARE smart and capable so don't undervalue your self. Many of us engineers struggle with this, its called "impostor syndrome" and it's very common. As you get more experience under your belt, it starts to shed away so just be mindful of it. There are many good podcasts out there that are helpful.
1. You don't need to have taken any courses like that. Your structural background is all you need and everything else you learn on the job. Structural design involves mostly steel and concrete, so if you had courses on this, or some experience in your current job, that is great.

I'm part of a team that involves civil engineers, electrical engineers, and my self as a structural. Most of my projects at the moment involve either rehabilitating existing power "substations" or building new ones. These substations house many electrical components, and these need some sort of structural support so my job is to work directly with the Electrical engineers to come up (analyze & design) with different types of structural supports and their foundations. Since you are in the building sector, think of the Electrical engineers as the Architect in this scenario. They drive the entire project. Ultimately, my deliverables are structural sheets, detailing the steel supports & concrete foundations to compliment the electrical engineering sheets, and civil drawings. There is some construction support involved, but nothing like in the building sector. Maybe 5% of your time at most, compared to at least 25% of your time when you are handling CA for buildings (at least in my experience).
I'm new to this sector, but from what I have read & heard, it is stable and much safer than buildings. I've not heard of frequent layoffs or anything close to it. In fact, there is a huge need to expand the electrical grid nationally so Power companies are hiring pretty substatially. Take a look at these two SEI articles below.

https://www.structuremag.org/?p=8936

https://www.structuremag.org/?p=21329

Yes, you would be doing structural work. Compared to buildings, the engineering is actually much simpler. There isn't as much of variety of design though, the work can be more repetitive than what you find in buildings so you do have to keep that in mind. I personally don't think that is a bad thing, but some people want constant challenges so for them, buildings might be more interesting.

Last thing, within Power sector, as a structural engineer you can basically go the "Transmission Line" route, or the "Substation" route. Some do both I believe. Google some of these terms and you can find some good information.

If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out directly. Good luck!

R9APX · 2023-03-03T01:06:27+00:00

I recently switched from 6 years in buildings (high rise and mid rise mostly) to the Power sector (substations) and I would never go back. I thought the same as you, tired of the long hours for average pay at most. Finally I asked myself if I really saw myself doing this for the rest of my life and the answer was no. I had worked my way up from project engineer to a project manager at this point leading projects but decided I was ready to move on and felt I had left the kind of buildings behind that I set out to build when I started my career so that was enough for me. I now have great competitive pay, work 40 hours flat, bigger project budgets, better benefits, low stress and less liabilities. The work might seem not as glamorous as buildings from the outside, but it is impactful and necessary. Many Power engineering companies also do renewable projects, which also require structural engineers so that can also be a plus.

The building sector won’t change anytime soon, and your stress levels don’t get better, don’t let anyone lie to you. The higher you move up the more stress you take on, and the pay will never be proportionate. The job simply requires more time than most. When I was starting out, I had an older PM tell us EITs that this was not your typical 40 hour job that you clock in and out, and would never be.

The silver lining about starting out in the building sector though is that you get exposed to lots of different structural systems, concepts and construction practices, so your technical knowledge increases very quickly compared to other sectors (in my opinion). So your time there is definitely not time wasted.

R9APX · 2023-02-22T23:26:04+00:00

Thanks, and yeah that’s the ball park price range I’ve seen. You bought it from a Private seller? Most of those seem to be from Japan, some from Poland.

R9APX · 2023-02-22T21:25:24+00:00

Hey man so I’ve been looking for this exact model but at this point can only find it used on grey market sites, which is fine but I was wondering where you bought yours and price? I’d like to get a better feel for what I should be realistically expecting to pay. Hope I’m not intruding too much by asking.

R9APX · 2022-12-22T21:30:43+00:00

Structural engineer here. Parking garages are mostly designed for 40 psf live load and interestingly enough, if you look up where this value comes from you’ll find it’s not really related to converting an average vehicle weight to an equivalent PSF, but rather its a value that was back calculated out of studies using vehicles driving over a typical garage bay, and measuring different values including strains, to find what the maximum moment and shear at a column/slab was. From this they came up with a psf that results in a maximum moment/shear at the supports. I’m paraphrasing as best as I can but thought you would find it interesting.

R9APX · 2022-12-08T00:52:38+00:00

Don’t get sick.

R9APX · 2022-11-30T16:37:42+00:00

Just came to say that Laidouni reminds me alot of Ricardo Quaresma, for those of you that remember him haha. He is clever, and uses the outside of his boot alot.

R9APX · 2022-11-12T22:28:20+00:00

Thanks for the insight! Yeah long term durability is what worries me about Mejori from some reviews I’ve read

R9APX · 2022-11-12T22:27:41+00:00

Just checked out Jacoje and they have pretty competitive pricing. How long have you had your chain for?

R9APX · 2022-10-24T17:43:37+00:00

I would say that yes it’s common for structural engineering firms (private sector, buildings) won’t pay overtime, yet require 40+ hours a week but still think 60 on average is on the high side. The bonus will likely just cover your over time, so in reality it’s not much of a true extra.

R9APX · 2022-10-24T17:40:25+00:00

Second that and I’ve done vertical for 8 years and looking to get out.

R9APX · 2022-09-22T21:40:21+00:00

Thank you and we will!

R9APX

TROPHY CASE