] [Thread] [Date] [Author]

[Christopher Wright <chrisw(--nospam--at)skypoint.com>]

> How many other professions are compensating for the
>perceived field practices? How many layers of redundancy does this add
>to the cost and the strength of the design?

Over here on the dark side we do it all the time. The trick is knowing 
when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. And don't give away engineering 
for free. If you know how people are going to do the work it makes good 
sense to design it that way, so long as it's safe (to cover your ass) and 
economical (to cover your client's). It's silly handing off a design to a 
fabricator when you know it won't be done properly. When I can do things 
to make a shop happy, it sure saves me a lot of grief, but at the same 
time I try to have my arguments ready for the day when you have to send 
it back and say do it over.

In that vein, I wonder how many of the infamous welded moment connection 
cracking problems were really problems with a deskbound designer not 
knowing how welders were actually doing the work.


Christopher Wright P.E.    |"They couldn't hit an elephant from
chrisw(--nospam--at)skypoint.com        | this distance"   (last words of Gen.
___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)
http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw