The State of Structural Engineering in the US

The goal of this research part was to gain an elementary overview of materials used in construction projects. The question was, “How often do you use/work with those as with the main material.” 

Respondents were supposed to choose from the scale: "always, often, sometimes, rarely, or never". In the next chart, you can see the split of materials mentioned as used "always" or "often". 

Data confirms the importance of steel and concrete as the most commonly used materials – 82% of subjects use steel always or often, and 72% use concrete. When explored in more detail, about 40% of companies use steel in all their projects ("always"), and 32% of companies use concrete always. 

Types of Construction

Similarly to the usage of materials, we tried to summarize all types of construction and how often they appear on the desks of structural engineers. The chart also includes institutional structures that were stated as others spontaneously.

No surprise, commercial projects lead. 20% of companies declare to design commercial structures as always, and about 43% do it often.

Besides those mentioned above, several respondents also listed other purposes, which we did not include in the chart because of their lower numbers. These include agricultural, nuclear, garages, marine, temporary, high-rise, sign, catenary, or environmental structures.

We also merged the material usage data with the purpose of construction. 

No big surprise here. For industrial buildings  - steel is in the lead, while for residential steel, concrete and timber are almost equal. 

Please remember, the chart includes only data of companies that mentioned using the material in concern "always" or "often". 

Structural engineering disciplines

We also wanted to understand the distribution of firms doing three structural engineering disciplines (Overall structural design, Connection design, Fabrication/shop drawings). We asked them to say how often they did these.
Again, answering on a scale of "always, often, sometimes, rarely, or never". The chart below shows a percentage of those who stated to be doing respective disciplines as always or often.

42% of interviewed structural engineering companies do connection design always or often. 

To see how they do the connection design, what types of connections they design etc., you can check the previous part of the research summary. 

We also wanted to provide more information about the "other" option, the most often mentioned activities related to the inspection and evaluation of existing structures, repairing design for damages and retrofit, and very often was also bridge design mentioned. 

Key findings

These research results align with information around the industry from Structural Engineering Associations and other industry groups. 

Typically, structural firms are smaller companies with a specific focus on types of projects ie.  commercial, residential or industrial. The reason for this is that each of these project types has some nuance to it. You would not apply the same principles to a single-family home as you would apply to a processing facility. Also, you have firms that do specialize in new construction, renovations /repairs or inspections.  

This study also confirmed that steel and concrete are still the materials of choice for buildings. Every project uses these materials in some fashion, but we are definitely seeing other materials being used more often, especially wood (in the form of CLT, etc.) for commercial projects.  

The interesting result is the number of firms working on connection design always or often based upon the geographical region involved. This is a much higher number than expected, as while attending different seminars and conferences over the last 20 years around structural engineering and particularly the steel industry, the connection design discussion was that East of the Rockies was primarily delegated connection design.

This is starting to change as firms are looking for other revenue streams and saving time as the schedule has become the main drive for so many projects. Many firms see providing connection design as meeting both needs. They can and have been selling connection design as an additional service to their clients to help expedite the construction administration phase of a project. 

The key factor is that the EOR knows the structure, has the analysis model and knows how he expects the building to perform; thus can often provide a more economical design in less time. Rather than having to provide some general rules back to the fabricator and his connection engineer to ensure that he is covered for any situation that could arise. The phrase “When in doubt, make it stout!” has cost building owners millions of dollars and cost connection engineers their hair as they pull it out, trying to understand what the EOR intends.

As a connection design software provider, we are happy to support this potential shift in the market by providing a tool to design any connection, linking to any analysis software, and helping engineers around the globe be more confident and comfortable in their designs.