Engineering Innovations Squared

My comment post from a blog by an engineer that was talking about how far we've come from the slide rule with social networking...

Remember when musings of the Internet was just a fad? Remember when the compass and slide rule were irreplaceable? Remember when the Post Office was relevant? Well, as it turns out, the Internet is here to stay; if you have a compass and slide rule you just might get your 15 minutes of fame on PBS’ Antiques Road Show; and I can’t recall the last time I paid bill or sent a hand written letter via snail mail. That said, consider yourself forewarned in regards to the utilization of Social Networking sites LinkedIn (44M+ users), Facebook (250M+users) and Twitter (4.5M+ users), among others – don’t be a naysayer, or you will be left in the dust. Chances are, if you are reading this, you are familiar with, and hopefully active on, one or more of these technologies. The key is – how can you make sure your company stays relevant by using them effectively?...

My Reply:

This topic is right in line with the mission statement of our movement known as Engineering Express. If you follow the logic of the article out further, you realize that it is our responsibility as engineers to problem solve, pioneer, and explore.

Social networking is one of the many innovations the web has brought to our doorstep, as well as Google, Blogging, and Email. But stop there???

Take notice of all you do in a day and ask yourself if computers and the Internet were around from the beginning of business if things would still be the same as they are, or would a new solution have been in place from the start? Have we fallen victim to habit, or can the technology tools of today help change your daily needs as an engineer, architect, contractor, or even the general public?

It has been the mission of Engineering Express to combine our every day engineering needs with technology and offer it on a platform of today’s business models, more like Google did. We take formulas, and static charts and tables out of dusty books and give them a shiny new web 2.0 wrapper in our widgets, replace complex calculations with our full size easy to use ‘webulators’, and interactively guide with our decision machines and informative databases.

We now have the ability to create these ‘widgets’ for many of the frequently asked questions in major hardware stores, and they’re quickly gaining the interest of other engineering firms when they realize the sky’s the limit for packing complex formulas into such neat little widget packages that can be copied right into your iGoogle, Facebook, or your own web page. It’s a newfound ability to ask both forward and reverse questions and report the answer to any degree of accuracy, from instant photometric scenarios to wastewater treatment solutions, to how much paint you buy for your house and what it will cost, and very few in our industry even realize it yet.

I was the among the first to discover phones could text messages to people nearly 10 years ago, I predicted you would see ‘www’ on the side of soda cans and movie screens in the late 90’s, and I’m predicting widgets (or some other form of live calculation) will replace static formulas in books for all engineers soon (right in the PDF even!), only this time I feel it’s my job to help make that happen… The future is upon us, join the cause, think of a widget to help your day, and let’s create solutions together.

The Hidden Story of Storm Protection

Take a look at those overhead webcam views of traffic on the highway. Did you ever notice how when cars speed up, they spread out, and when they slow down, they come closer together? That phenomenon is very similar to air molecules during a high wind event.

When a high wind storm such as a hurricane or tropical storm spreads its winds across the land, it doesn’t just speed up the wind. It comes in gusts, constantly speeding and slowing down, across narrow pathways. In one area a big burst while just feet away a whole different scenario could be taking place. These wind events speed up and slow down wind molecules just like that of the traffic on the highway.

This effect is what engineers are really designing for in a structure. An ‘enclosed’ building, typical of most structures, becomes pressurized inward and outward hundreds if not thousands of times from these gusty winds and spaces between molecules rapidly expanding and lowering pressure, then slowing down and contracting, increasing the pressure. They also whip around corners and create vacuums where pressure is multiplied by both the internal and the external forces acting on a structure. The calculation for pressure is velocity squared, so pressure forces increase exponentially as wind velocities increase.

When you put up storm shutters, you are not only protecting an opening (such as a door or window) from being hit by flying debris, but you are also providing another form of protection that is often not apparent to the public. This “other” form of protection is the most important one for us to pay attention to. The build up of pressure behind the shutter can break glass or other cladding that isn’t designed to handle the same forces that the shutter system is. The shutter’s function then becomes to maintain the closure of the building so the internal pressurization isn’t multiplied and cascaded to a critical failure.

Even for more modern windows of today’s codes, the systems are not designed to handle the potentially thousands of cycles of pressure and small debris that can occur in a hurricane. If a window for example is rated for large missile impact (using ‘laminated glass’ - two layers of glass surrounding a synthetic material), you are protected. If not, then a shutter system should be used to keep the opening protected.

So consider all of these factors when looking for storm protection solutions and protecting yourself during a storm, and consult a licensed contractor that specializes in the installation of hurricane protection products before making any decisions. Most importantly, make sure the window, door, or protection system you are using has a Florida Building Code Product Approval Number. Visit www.inthpa.com for more information.

...And don’t be fooled by that cliché excuse ‘It stayed up during the last storm’, because the gusts of mother nature may not blow in your favor next time…

Written by Frank L. Bennardo, P.E. for IHPA release, August 2009