Sofware Demo!

Most people go for a walk on Boxing Day ... we had a software demo :-)

Our son Stuart has been with us for a couple of days and after our daughter had departed with her family, I took the chance to ask Stuart about the software he has been working on. More below, but the main blip shows the effects of loading on one floor of a tall reinforced concrete building  - Stuart developed the mathematical model for this.

There is a rare photo of Stuart in the extra. 

See yesterday's back-blip for a different stage of engineering :-)

 More info on the software: Stuart's degree is in structural engineering, but he has found he enjoys the software/mathematical modelling aspects of it the most and now works as a developer.   His most recent project has been Tekla Structural Designer - he worked on the concrete deflection model and helped to increase the efficiency of the number crunching (finite element analysis) the program does which in turn improves the speed for the users and allows them to experiment more with e.g. loading. As a generalisation, there might be more steel reinforcement around the ends of the columns as that is where the weight of the upper structure most affect the intermediate floors. 

Users can set up events e.g. pouring the heavy wet concrete for floor 6 and see how that might affect floor 4.  The concrete develops small cracks which affect it's future strength and that too can be included in the model. It has been good for him to work with the different people involved in the project and then to see the positive customer reaction