Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

A quick one for the civils (and maybe even the E&M’s if you ever get asked to look at a future civil problem…).

When working on my thesis I stumbled across this website:  EurocodeApplied.  Basically, it provides free online calculation tools for structural design to Eurocode.  You select the relevant check, enter your input data and select any relevant National Annex limitations. It also summarises key data from the code without having to find every table or figure.  

There are pages for EC1 – Actions (including wind actions), EC 2 – Concrete (creep, shrinkage, durability, axial and bending checks, shear design and detailing), EC3 Steel (steel properties like the blue book and section capacity checks) and EC8 Seismic (actions, fundamental periods, reductions of earthquake actions during construction and foundations/retaining structures).

Sadly I’m not doing any design to EC over here so I’ve not been able to validate their accuracy.  If any of the Civil crew are doing wind loading or simple checks and want to try them out I’d love to know if they are a good source.  If validated, it could be a really useful tool for future PET or Clk Wks students depending on how kind the PEW lecturing staff are feeling!

One of the projects being delivered by Arup has made use of QR codes on their design drawings to bring them to life.

You can scan the code on the drawing set with your phone camera and get automatically re-directed to a snapshot of the BIM 3D model. You can then ‘look around’ using the motion sensors in the smartphone. An example is here.

Anyone with the design drawing and a smart phone has access. Great for coordinating with a sub-contractor on site without having to be in an office with access to the software and model files.

Has anyone else spotted any novel uses of BIM/3D models?