Thoughts on AI
Everyone is using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for everything these days, even structural engineers. I see the junior engineers in the office using ChatGPT on close to a daily basis. Even some of the senior ones can be observed quickly closing a suspiciously ChatGPT like browser tab every now and then. But AI comes with some traps for the unwary and this post aims to point (some of) them out.
Read more…Now Powered By Hugo
This blog has gone through a quiet time lately - 5½ years! That’s life with little kids though. Hopefully I’ll be able to write a bit more in the future, small children allowing. To that end I’ve spent some time updating the gizzards of this blog, replacing Jeykll with Hugo. Let’s see how it goes, shall we?
Galvanic Corrosion - Some Observations From the Field
Part of any structural design process is selecting the material to build your structure from. This is an optimisation process, where you choose the materials based on their strength, ease of fabrication, durability, cost and other factors. Something that often gets overlooked in this process however is the potential for galvanic corrosion.
In mining, corrosive environments are common. Large amounts of water are used, and water is often contaminated with corrosive chemicals, and spillage of fine product holds moisture against steelwork (rather than letting it evaporate). Once mined, the product has to go somewhere, often to a port in a marine environment (plenty of salt!).
Read more…Some Effects of Local Corrosion
A common issue that I see in my role as a structural engineer is corrosion (and lots of it!). After finding some corrosion, I’m often asked: “how much strength has been lost”?
Sometimes the answer is obvious:
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If It’s Moving, It’s Broken
A Structural Engineer’s take on the world