Steel in the News

Make your structural steel visions come to life! How? By entering AISC’s third annual Steel Sculpture Competition!

If you’re an AISC full or associate member, join this year’s competition and create your own innovative steel sculpture for a chance to have your company featured in MSC and more.

Here are the rules:

• The sculpture must be steel (and only steel), but shapes, sizes and steel type can be your personal preference.
• The sculpture must be made entirely by your staff.
• The finished sculpture must fit in a 2-ft by 2-ft by 2-ft box (for shipping purposes).
• All entries must include a title and the name of the company submitting the project.
• There's no theme! But keep in mind the characteristics of steel: adaptable, economical, quick and sustainable.

Submit photos of your sculpture by September 13, 2013 to AISC’s Jenny McDonald at mcdonald@aisc.org.

From September 16-27, all entries will be posted to AISC’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/AISCdotORG) where they’ll be voted on by fans. The top five finalists will be put on display at the 2014 NASCC: The Steel Conference, March 26-29 in Toronto, where the ultimate winner will be chosen by attendees. The winner will also be featured in MSC and receive a catered lunch for their company.

Learn more about the competition at www.steelday.org/sculpturecomp.

Check out this year’s winning sculpture: “Steel Life-Cycle” (pictured left).

The competition is part of SteelDay, the structural steel industry’s largest educational and networking event, held nationwide. It’s scheduled for October 4 this year; mark your calendars! If you’re interested in hosting or attending an event, visit www.steelday.org.

Student team members from the University of Washington College of Engineering - the home team in this year’s National Student Steel Bridge Competition finals, held earlier this month - hustle to construct their steel bridge under the pressure of the clock. Photo: AISC

For the second consecutive year, a team of students from the University of California, Berkeley (pictured left), have been named champions in the 2013 ASCE/AISC National Student Steel Bridge Competition (NSSBC), which took place May 31-June 1 at the University of Washington’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Seattle.

Also for the second straight year, second place overall went to the team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. University of California, Davis, took third place overall.

About 600 students from 49 qualifying teams convened to showcase their engineering skills in the competition finals. This inter-collegiate competition challenges civil engineering students to work together to design, fabricate and construct their own scaled steel bridges in the shortest time and under specific building constraints.

The bridges were judged in six key categories related to steel design and construction: construction speed; stiffness; lightness; construction economy; display; and efficiency. The teams with the best combined rankings across all six categories earn overall award recognition.

To view the top three winners in each category, see AISC’s press release. The complete competition rankings can be found at www.nssbc.info.

You can also view photos from this year’s competition on AISC’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/AISCdotORG in the “NSSBC 2013” photo album. A video showing highlights from the competition will soon be available on AISC’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/AISCSteelTV.

Next year’s NSSBC will be held May 23-24 at the University of Akron in Ohio. To learn more about the NSSBC, visit www.aisc.org/steelbridge or www.nssbc.info.

Are you as excited about the new “Man of Steel” movie as we are? It opens in cinemas everywhere tomorrow, June 14.

Based on the DC Comics character Superman, the film will be a reboot of the Superman film series, portraying the character’s origin story. (You can read more about the film on Wikipedia.)

The movie was filmed in the Chicago area, including some downtown locations not too far from AISC’s headquarters.

AISC’s Scott Melnick’s editorial from the January 1993 issue of MSC is called “The Man of Steel,” and you can learn how he came up with this Superman slogan: "They don't call him the Man of Concrete."

You still have time to register for AISC’s live webinar happening tomorrow, June 13, focused on “Design of Diaphragms, Chords, and Collectors in Steel-Framed Buildings.”

The design of a lateral system for a building is not complete without a complete path delivering the load to the braced frames, moment frames or shear walls. Diaphragms serve this important function, providing the load path while also restraining the gravity system against sway buckling.

This live webinar will review the types of diaphragms often found in steel-framed buildings as well as the components of diaphragms. Special diaphragm strength requirements in ASCE 7 and special requirements for chords and collectors will be reviewed and design methodologies for diaphragm components will be presented.

The 1.5-hour webinar will begin at the following times, relative to time zone:

Noon PDT
1 p.m. MDT
2 p.m. CDT
3 p.m. EDT

The cost of the webinar is $185 for AISC members, $285 for non-members and $155 for students and educators. (Fees are based on a per-site connection basis. Purchase one site connection and any number of members in your company or organization may view the webinar at that site connection. All attendees are eligible to receive CEUs/PDHs.)

Registrants will receive access to a PDF file of the presentation slides prior to the webinar, CEU/PDH certificates for all attendees upon completion of the live webinar (0.15 CEUs/1.5 PDHs) and complete instructions for accessing the live webinar.

Partial funding for this webinar is provided by the California and Vicinity Steel Information Council (CVSIC).

To register for the live webinar and learn more about other upcoming AISC webinars, visit www.aisc.org/webinars.

The ballot submission period for the National BIM Standard – United States Version 3 (NBIMS-US V3) is now open, giving all building professionals the opportunity to offer their ideas to influence the future use of building information modeling (BIM) in the U.S.

A BIM is a shared resource of knowledge about a facility that can be used to make decisions throughout its life cycle, from the initial idea, to design and construction, through daily operations and eventual demolition.

Because BIM covers all aspects of the building process, everyone in the construction industry will be impacted as the use of BIM becomes the standard operating procedure. Therefore, the National Institute of Building Sciences’ buildingSMART alliance is asking professionals from every sector in the building industry to participate in the development process of NBIMS-US V3. Ballots can amend or revise current NBIMS-US content or they can propose adding the latest technologies, processes and practices not yet included in the standard.

Since NBIMS Version 1- Part 1 was first released in 2007, the content of the standard has evolved, including information exchange standards for construction operations and product specifications. NBIMS-US V2 is a consensus-based standard and includes reference standards, information exchange standards (which are built upon the reference standards) and best practice guidelines to support users in their implementation of open BIM standards-based deliverables.

The ballot submission period for NBIMS-US V3 ends August 19, 2013.

You can view the schedule on the National BIM Standard website (www.nationalbimstandard.org).

Individuals and organizations that are not yet NBIMS-US members can learn how to get involved. (Only members can submit ballots and vote on changes to the standard.)

NBIMS Project Committee members can download ballots now.