11/22/2018 (6) Why 50%UDL vs. Posted Reactions?

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Why 50%UDL vs. Posted Reactions?

Published on September 12, 2018

This image below is a marked up plan from the connection engineer on a project that has
50% UDL in the structural specifications from the Engineer of Record (EOR). This is often
what happens instead of the EOR posting the end reactions on the design drawings from
their structural analysis. The problem is that often times 50% UDL or Max Shear which
often governs on shorter beams is often overkill to what is actually loaded on the members.

Messaging

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Cost to the Fabricator, Detailer, and Connection Engineer

What ends up happening is the connection engineer, contracted by the steel fabricator, will
over design and often create more unique parts and connections which significantly
increases the cost of steel fabrication. Then there are cases where a feasible connection can't
be designed, and it causes the connection engineer to mark up plans and submit an RFI like
above asking to verify smaller capacities. The detailer then needs to look at these plans and
the connection schedules to make sure they adhere to all of these conditions. This slows
detailing down and increases detailing costs in having to coordinate some beams being
based on UDL and others are based on these marked up plans. The connection engineer then
spends more time during shop drawing review having to check the detailer followed this.
Worst case, the EOR takes 2 weeks to answer this RFI and comes back disagreeing with the
connection engineer and the detailer has to go back into his model and shop drawings and
change things.

Cost and Impact to the Engineer of Record (EOR)

EOR's may be saving hours at the early stages of a project by not noting the end reactions on
the design plans, but it just comes back to them later on in the project when they have to
answer RFI's like this and tie it back to the shop drawing review process.

It also increases RISK on the job when information isn't just easily posted in one consistent
way and location for the detailer to follow. The detailer could miss something and apply the
wrong connection. This is rare since both the connection engineer and detailer spend extra
resources on "checking" to make sure this doesn't happen and everything is caught.

Cost and Impact to the Owner

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On May 8, 2018, we published revised Structural
of our Engineer (EOR)
Privacy Policy, is often judged
User Agreement by the building
and Professional Community Owner
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theseof the terms and take some
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time to understand them. Your use of LinkedIn services is subject to these revised terms. Visit the LinkedIn blog to learn more about these changes.
structure he provides since this often is the unit of measure in cost from the contractor to the
owner. "What's the price per ton?" The thing is the connection detailing and6 fabrication can Find connections
impact the costs in just as big of a way. If connections are oversized it may cause costly
extra doubler plates and welding which drives up the cost in the shop. It also might mean
bigger gusset plates that reduce the room for MEP routing. So in the end the Owner is
paying a higher total installed cost of the building when the reactions aren't posted and the
structure isn't thoroughly designed with connections also in mind.

What's the Win-Win Solution?

So what are some options that will help everyone be more cost effective on the project?

When Using 2D Drawings

A couple of win-win solutions here that will benefit everyone is that on beams with larger
reactions, post those on the design drawings and then have a min kip reaction note for most
of the other smaller beams. This allows you to be cost effective in making the design plans
while also being clear the true reactions on larger more complicated beams and braces.

When Using 3D BIM

If you transfer the design model from say Autodesk Revit or from your Structural Analysis
package can you ensure the reactions are exported so the detailing system can automatically
use these and be taking advantage of by the connection engineer. This doesn't cost the EOR
extra time annotating 2D plans and elevations, but helps convey more accurate information
than 50% UDL.

It would be great for Structural Engineers to share their thoughts on the benefits of
specifying 50%UDL vs. posting the reactions on the drawings and anyone else's suggestions
on how we can make this process better.

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Mandeep Singh • 3rd 2mo

Structural Design Engineer with 9 years experience in Oil & Gas Projects

Having worked on 3 project where the detailing and connection design was off loaded to Steel
fabricator I can totally understand the pain behind this. And to be honest we had a very good
steel fabricator which whom we sat down initially and decided during that meeting the blanket
load values rather than UDL for all smaller beams. We provided connection force sets for all
major connections and blanket values for all minor stuff, but whenever we used to report force
…see more
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Nicholas Policy, User Agreement and Professional Community Policies. Please read these2mo
Coffee updated terms and take some
time to understand them. Your use of LinkedIn services
Owneris /subject
Checkerto these revised
/ Estimator terms.
at United Visit LLC
Structural the LinkedIn blog to learn more about these changes.
Money is wasted whether you respond to the RFIs quickly or not.  RFIs are generated for
connections that either fail or require reinforcement while in reality 2/3 of the building
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connections are over designed costing everybody money.  Delegated design almost
always leaves more room for errors and omissions.
Like Reply

Marcin Kotas PE 2mo

Structural Engineer (Senior Associate) at DMWPV

or better yet...design them yourself like we do at DMWPV.

Like Reply 2 Likes · 4 Replies

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Marcin Kotas PE 2mo

Structural Engineer (Senior Associate) at DMWPV

 No argument here.  My firm's reasoning in not delegating them is the fact that nobody
better understands the structure than the EoR.  We like to have control of the design of
connections, especially those of the critical stability elements (braces/collectors, etc...). 
We do like to get paid for it and account for it in our fee which may be higher than our
competition.  However, the owner will pay for it one way or the other.  At the end…see of themore
Like Reply 1 Like

Nicholas Coffee 2mo

Owner / Checker / Estimator at United Structural LLC

As a detailer we have to sell our value over our competition.   I think it is just as important
for EORs to do the same thing, a good sales / design team will make the owner think
critically about what they're getting included in their price.  It seems like you guys are
doing it right.
Like Reply 1 Like

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