What can a structural engineer do?

People often ask me what I do. I said I was a structural engineer, building houses. Most laymen will envy me. Later, when they found out that they regarded me as an architect, they quickly explained that whether the house is beautiful or not is not my responsibility. I am responsible for the calculation of the stress, bearing capacity, structure and reinforcement of the structure, so that the building can stand safely. After some explanation, the questioner suddenly realized that you designed the skeleton. I heard that you all exercise through computers. How good your work is! Every time I hear this conclusion, I can only smile bitterly. Perhaps this is the impression of structural engineers in many people's eyes. In the design institute, structural engineers are also a group of inactive groups. Different from architects, they have been constantly showing their ideas and design ideas since their student days, and they have taken the lead in leading various professions to realize their "blueprints" in their work. It seems that it is only cement, steel bars and structural systems that are the turn of structural engineers. Dry structural data is not brilliant at all. When Party A sees us, it often has nothing to say: structural design should ensure safety! Only when the project starts construction can the "importance" of structural specialty be reflected-structural engineers have more on-site disclosure, changes and guidance than other specialties. Hard work is second, but after the wind and the sun, I suddenly found a problem. When the wind comes and the rain goes, I always toss about something. There are so many columns with a cross section of 800 mm that even the steel workers know that ten and eight thick steel bars are stuffed in and tied together with a pile of steel hemp rope. The stirrup spacing is either 100mm or 200mm, which is as complicated as the structural engineer said! One day, I received a phone call from my hometown, and my parents wanted to turn over the house, which greatly increased my confidence. Finally, it's my turn to make decisions. I completely forgot the injury and pain, worked overtime and made a structural diagram that I was proud of, but I waited for my mother's call: building a house costs nothing, so many steel bars are enough to build two houses. The invited master said that they could just put the steel bars themselves. Even in the loss, I am a little confused. What does a structural engineer do? Looking at the colleagues around the office, I suddenly felt that I was just a computer migrant worker. Every day, the master's plan is changed over and over again, and the structural model is adjusted over and over again. This thing has been done for a long time, and the invalid drawings are sprayed out like running water. That's all for a new person and a new place. Other majors can celebrate happily after the project acceptance. However, the structural specialty has just started, and the burden is very heavy. However, it will take another 50 years to design and use. If there is a slight earthquake or tsunami, structural engineers will feel scared and worry that the houses they design will make mistakes. You know, when the house is built, it's nothing too big for structural engineers; Once something goes wrong, they are often the first to be found, and even if they retire, they can't get away with it-structural engineers are responsible for design for life. If you have more troubles, you will naturally be silent. Whenever you encounter a problem, you will say your thoughts in a few words, which makes people feel uninterested. Occasionally attend salons or seminars of architects, and listen to Kan Kan, a master architect and cutting-edge architect, talk about architectural philosophy and personal style, Sydney Opera House in Wuzhong, Tadao Ando's church, Meyer's art museum, Ge Tan's gymnasium and so on. Everyone is fascinated and excited. But when we return to the field of structure, we can't help feeling lost. There are so many super-difficult and complicated structural designs and so many profound theories. How many masters of structure can you know? Yes, all this is boring, which makes many structural engineers with dreams gradually lose their motivation in their work. Just like the speculative philosophy of existence, some people choose to leave, others choose to persist, those who leave no longer think, and those who stay continue to suffer. What can structural engineers do in the ever-changing construction field? When all kinds of curved, irregular, ultra-high and ultra-high requirements are thrown at structural engineers in a short time, endless pressure will roll in, and it is a good wish to turn pressure into power. Actual pain can't solve practical problems after all. When there are only these troubles in the eyes and opening the blueprint is all a problem, it is the structural engineer's own will that kills people. Architects often have young talents, while structural engineers rarely have cases, which also proves the difficulty of structural engineers' growth. Architects have philosophical thinking about architecture, but it seems that only technology and theory are emphasized in the structural class, but structural engineers are not told that killing while moving is the best experience. Many young engineers often ask anxiously when they can grow up. In fact, obtaining a professional certificate in the engineering field is only proof of mastering basic knowledge. How to reasonably apply basic knowledge to practical work needs to be practical and effective. There is a theory that it takes 65,438+00,000 hours of practice (or 65,438+00 years) to become a person with expertise in most fields, which is why job advertisements often require 8 to 65,438+00 years of work experience. Three years' experience proves that you know what you are doing in the industry, and five years' experience proves that you can solve standard problems in the industry. As long as we insist, we will wait until the day of work 10. At that moment, they may feel really great, but will they really become experts on that day? Structural design sometimes seems simple. Take a software to calculate, match the results, copy the online instructions and a set of standard atlas, and it will be ok. But the result is nothing more than using yourself as an assembler on the production line. Even if you do more projects, it doesn't show how deep you have structural knowledge. If you don't work in a breakthrough way of thinking, you will only accumulate drawing experience. With more experience, it becomes a formula; If there are many formulas, it will become a frame; There are too many frameworks, which limit the structural thinking and make it impossible to update knowledge. In fact, mastering your major has another meaning, that is, spending more time and energy on each project, because the experience of the previous project can only provide some reference for the next project. If you simply apply the experience to other projects, it may sometimes cause serious consequences. Similarly, after 10 years, some people emerged in the industry, not because they waited for 10 years, but because they kept working hard and broke through the shackles after 10 years. If you only see their dazzling aura, but don't understand the hardships behind success, it won't touch your growth too much. Forget all kinds of magical crash stories, combine your own reality and interests, and pay attention to the deep accumulation of structural practice. This is the only way to become an excellent structural engineer. Besides hard work, what else will affect the growth of a structural engineer? I have seen a suggestion about choosing a job-do what you like if you want. The famous architect Mr. I.M. Pei is a typical example. Because of his obsession with architecture, he firmly chose to study architecture. However, when he entered the school, he was advised by his teacher to reconsider his study direction because his architectural painting was poor. But he still insisted on his choice, and paid attention to visual training in his later studies, and eventually became a generation of architectural masters. Bayesian is very good at skillfully using structural features in architecture and talks about the reasons. He emphasized that his love for architecture decided that he attached importance to the study and application of all architecture-related majors. It can be seen how important it is to like your job for success. But many structural engineers don't know the true meaning of structural specialty when they volunteer. They just stumbled into this business by mistake, and naturally they don't like it. But interest can be cultivated, just like many people who get married first and then fall in love, they can cultivate deep feelings in the same life and stay with them for life. Interest is your best teacher. It can not only guide you to bear all kinds of difficult pressures, but also guide you to form your own structured thinking mode, including the habit, depth and breadth of thinking. Structural design itself is very hard, and liking structural design will not make your work easy. The more I like it, the more I want to challenge my design ability. The more I want to challenge, the more I find that I don't know enough about structure. Naturally, we need more time to enrich or improve our knowledge, and then apply it to new design, so the design ability will be improved through self-torture. But as long as you like structural design, you won't get tired of all this, and the happiness brought by the sense of accomplishment in realizing the structural intention is far higher than the pain in the process of realization. Since the title of overhead structural engineer, you should be prepared to like structural design. Since you can't love one line and do another, do one line and love one line, which will bring you endless fun. Original author: Tsui Hark