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Some people do not know what a Civil or Structural Engineer is. Here is a quick overview to help explain:
Civil is a broad term when describing an engineer. There are many types of civil engineers, here are a few examples:
• Environmental
• Geotechnical
• Structural
In addition to those there are also core civil engineering duties; i.e. highway design and airport design.
At RBE the type of civil engineering we perform consists of grading and drainage. Grading is when you change the slope of land; i.e. make a hillside lot flat. Drainage is designing a plane with the proper slopes and drains in order to properly mitigate water flow.
Yes, structural engineering is a form of civil engineering and NO a structural engineer is NOT an Architect. A structural engineer has the task of putting together the skeleton of a structure (house, apartment building, warehouse....etc). Whenever anything is built there is an "instruction manual" (aka plans) that the contractor needs to follow. You can consider the structural drawings a chapter within that instruction manual. Here are the basic steps when building a structure:
First off you need an architect: The architect has several tasks, some examples:
• Coordinating all "chapters" of the instruction manual; i.e. mechanical, structural, civil, electrical, etc...
• Make sure the structure can be built the way the owner desires; many different cities have their own rules and regulations that the architect has the responsibility of meeting; i.e. zoning, egress, aesthetics, etc.
Once the architect has prepared his/her set of drawings (most of the time they are not 100% complete at this stage) they are delivered to the structural engineer. The structural engineer then uses the architect’s backgrounds to prepare structural plans and details. The main goal of the structural engineer is preparing plans for the contractor to follow in order to build a safe structure. Basically the structural engineer prepares the "bones" of the structure and makes sure the structure will hold against different combinations of loads; i.e. wind, earthquake, snow, people dancing, etc.
What RBE brings to the team is not only a safe structure that balances safety and economy but our plans and details are prepared in such a manner that the contractor can build with ease. We provide as many details as we can to help the contractor build properly and our details keep constructability in mind so that the contractor has an easier time building the structure. What that means to the owner is that the contractor will spend less money to build the structure and therefore save the owner money.
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