What if you inspected a bridge and found severe rust deterioration of a fracture-critical steel member, and you reviewed previous inspection reports that documented the progression of this condition? And what if you took this information back to the office,…
ReEngineering the Engineer: Patience Required: Getting Up To Speed Can Be a Slow Process
Our older daughter was an early professional casualty of the pandemic. Although she received her college degree in finance and marketing, she had…
Video: Hearing the Voice of the Customer
Todd Danielson, Informed Infrastructure's editorial director, interviewed Katriona Lord-Levins, the chief success officer for Bentley Systems, via webcam.
Accelerated Efficiency with Data-Driven Design
Viktor Várkonyi, Chief Division Officer of the Planning & Design Division and Member of the Executive Board of the Nemetschek Group, explains why data-driven design is more efficient than model-driven design and what this has to do with Building Lifecycle…
Tech Tip: Is it Time to Update Your Civil 3D Template?
If you’re on an Autodesk subscription plan, new versions of software are available to you every year, and periodic updates, enhancements and hotfixes are issued on a pretty regular basis. Although your software may be keeping up to date, your template file…
Code Update: An Advanced Approach to Seismic Code-Check of Steel Connections
About half the buildings designed and constructed in North America have some level of seismic design requirements. Seismic design has evolved—engineers now face terms such as capacity design, dissipative item, plastic hinge and deformation capacity—so…
From the Editor: What’s Past Is Prologue, But the Future Seems Uncertain
For the last three months, I’ve been teaching a senior design class at Valparaiso University, my alma mater. When I say “at Valparaiso University,” I mean “at home, for the university, through online software.” The pandemic has had a significant…
Executive Corner: Are These Beliefs Crippling Your Firm?
You’re probably familiar with the adage “beliefs drive behaviors, behaviors drive results.” From my 15 years of experience as an owner and CFO for architecture and engineering firms, I can tell you that faulty beliefs are the biggest culprit when…
How the Challenges of 2020 Will Shape the Infrastructure Industry
The need to build and maintain U.S. infrastructure continues, and organizations continue to operate in a period of unprecedented disruption. A global pandemic, economic downturn and necessary social change will ensure 2020 a place in the history books. The…
Thoughts From Engineers: A Moving Target: The Challenge of Predicting Flood Risk
The Aug. 20, 2018, storms that hit Dane County, Wis., near Madison, unloaded in some locations nearly 15.33 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. Flood stage on Black Earth Creek climbed from 2 feet to 9.7 feet within a few hours, and the two-day rain event…