In This Issue

SAVE $50! Register today for AISC's new Spring Seminar Series to take advantage of early registration discounts.

 

The AISC Spring Seminar Series kicks off on February 16th. With over 30 cities and 3 exciting seminar topics to choose from, you'll be sure to find one to fit your continuing education needs. Click here to view a map of seminar locations on the spring schedule, or click here to visit out website to learn more about AISC seminars.

 

Register by February 12th to take advantage of our early registration discount. Click here to register now.

Steven Baldridge, president of Baldridge & Associates Structural Engineering, spent the last week and a half in Haiti on a mission with NEES and EERI gathering data and preparing for future aid and reconstruction efforts. Updates from the NEES/EERI team can be found here.

 

Earthquakes are sobering reminders of the seriousness of our work; they are also impartial judges of our designs. When an earthquake occurs in a country such as Haiti, which lacks adequate engineering and construction, it has tragic consequences. Most of the time, the work of structural engineers is unnoticed and unappreciated. However, we as structural engineers can and are helping in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake.

 

The need for structural engineers in Haiti has only just begun. If you’d like to do more than just send money, consider volunteering as a structural engineer. Contact your local structural engineering association for details.

Modern Steel Construction magazine’s digital edition is now quicker and easier to use. Effective in its January ’10 issue, MSC’s digital edition has switched to a new format that provides additional features.

 

• Article headlines and section identifiers (Steel Interchange, for example) are linked to Google Translate. Clicking provides a text-only version that can be automatically translated.

 

• The "Contents" dropdown menu offers easy navigation, allowing you to jump to the beginning of any item listed without having to flip through pages.

 

• The "Share" function allows you to send a link for either a particular page or the entire issue to a friend via e-mail, or to share it using a social media connection.

 

Check it out by clicking on the MSC cover above and let us know what you think.

Preserving our Bridge Infrastructure: Department of Transportation Forum will be held at the NACE Conference in San Antonio, Texas, on Wednesday, March 17th. This one-day forum will focus exclusively on maintaining U.S. bridges. All State Department of Transportation personnel focused on Bridges and Highways are welcome to attend and will receive complimentary registration to CORROSION 2010.

 

For more information on the Corrosion 2010 conference and expo visit http://events.nace.org/conferences/c2010
/attendees/index.asp and look under schedule and events for the Bridge/DOT Forum.

The Sustainability Committee of the Structural Engineering Institute has formed a Thermal Steel Bridging Working Group. They will be defining and quantifying the issue of thermal steel bridging in buildings, and identifying solutions. This includes:

 

• Reviewing research that has been conducted so far
• Reviewing code implications of integrating thermal break material into building details
• Reviewing how various energy modeling software programs handle thermal bridging
• Compiling options for details that reduce thermal bridging

 

The Working Group is chaired by Jim D'Aloisio, who can be reached at jad@khhpc.com.

 

Meet the MSC contributing web editors

What's being answered right now:

Q. In the third edition of the LRFD Manual of Steel Construction, on page 16.1-143, there is a table for Design Stress for Compression Members in relation to Kl/r. Where is this table in the Steel Construction Manual 13th edition?

A.

This information is now found in Table 4-22, which is in Part 4 of the 13th edition manual. Since these specific tables are derived values based on specification equations, it was decided to remove the tables from the specification, and include them in the column section of the manual.

ASK AISC: Click here to ask the Steel Solutions Center a question.