Introducing 5 Books Every Engineer Should Read to Boost Their Career

For improving your technical abilities and dealing better with peers, here are the five books that would help you to grow faster.

  1. The Design of Everyday Things – Donald A. Norman

About – Reflection on daily use objects including computers, light switches, door handles, etc.

  1. Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down – J.E. Gordon

About – Narrates principles of structural engineering and basic forces of bridges, dams, etc.

  1. Basic Machines and How They Work, Revised (1994) Edition – Naval Education and Training Program

About – Elaborates theory, design, and application of mechanical products.

  1. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future – Ashlee Vance

About – Insights about great entrepreneur, Elon Musk and his inspirational journey.

  1. How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie

About – Simple and easy techniques of winning people around you.

Next Generation: Apartment of the Future Concept Design

The design of the apartments have evolved in the last few years, and will continue developing with technology advancements. The apartment of the future is a complete new concept, it pervades and enhances as the architects and designers adopt new styles and feats.

Below listed are a few technologies that are comprises to define apartment of the future:

Delivery Drones

These drones can drop off packets and other utilities into another apartment safely and securely. This technology will lower down the use of elevator system as it will help people in delivering things to another resident’s apartment with the help of drone.

Robotic Parking

It will become an essential feature within the apartments as the site size will decrease, and automatic parking will make systematic sequencing of cars while saving valuable space and time. As a part of robotic parking, drone landing pads will be also used so that cars can be transported vertically outside the building to the right parking location. The car drivers will then be able to instruct parking with the touch of a smartphone app.

Self-Driving Cars

Within the few years, the roads are going to experience autonomous cars dominating the urban areas. There will be special parking for those vehicles that can automatically park themselves while for human-driven cars, the apartments will accommodate robotic parking system as listed above.

Smart Exteriors

In the process of creating apartments for the future, designers will propose only the lightweight and incredible strong carbon fibre. Such kinetic façade exterior will out bring energy and movement combined with energy efficient LED lighting that will assist in growth of vegetation. Therefore, the apartment of the future will produce solar as well as wind energy as a feature of smart exteriors.

Luxury Amenities

Residents in the apartments of the future are going to enjoy the on-the-go lifestyle which includes one feature as smart phone enabled entry. The residents can provide limited access time to enter and also reset the time as per the requirement. There will be bigger and functional closet spaces into rooms and also huge balconies. The residents will also experience gas cook tops and recycled glass counter tops in the kitchens.

AeroAstro Engineering Student Explores Living on Mars 

Planet Mars has been fascinating the engineers all over the world for a long time. Researchers and scientists have been working to design simulated environments, rovers and safelights to explore the planet and its life possibilities.
To experience the living conditions and environment, a project called Poland Mars Analogue Simulation was designed.
The project aims to support real missions to Mars by giving researchers an opportunity to see what living and working on Mars will be like.
A team of engineers and researchers started experimenting with this project.
One among them was Aeronautics and Astronautics (AAE) graduate student Jennifer Pouplin. She has been an enthusiastic student studying astrodynamics and propulsion which made her a perfect fit for the experiment.
This was one of a kind of mission that is expected to help researchers potentially explore the planet.

What’s new in Revit 2018

The 2018 release of Revit has introduced some amazing features for the users. These features will enable the designers to model a complete, consistent, and coordinated designs for multiple disciplines. These features have the extensibility to both detailing and construction. The list of features are:

Co-ordinated Models

The new Revit feature, now allows the users to link their NWC or NWD files of the coordination models that are generated on Navisworks®. This feature can be helpful to compare the non-Revit and Revit model.

Scheduled Groups and Revit Links

The users can now select the fields that appear in the schedule on the Fields tab of Schedule Property Dialog Box. Also, the new feature allows the Revit experts to include the elements from a linked model.

Global Parameters

In the 2018 Revit updates, the experts can now embed designs with project-wide parameters. Furthermore, these parameters can now work with equality constraints and diameter and radial dimensions.

Multistory Stairs

The new feature of stairs allows the users to create multistory stairs by selecting the levels of the building. These stairs adjust automatically when the heights are changed. These stairs can be created from the existing stairs even at a later stage.

Railings

The new railing feature allows the users to modify the railing by chaining its height, shape, and number. Also, the path of the railing can be customized through sketch tools.

MEP Fabrication Model

The 2018 updates allow the experts build a run of connected MEP fabrication parts automatically by just clicking on the points of the model. The selection of the parts is automatic from the current fabrication service and group.

MEP Design and Analysis

With the help of the new updates in Revit, the users can now manipulate the pathways of the circuit. Also, the updates in MEP design and analysis allows the users to define their own type of space. They can also include the requirements of outdoor air.

Rebar for Complex Geometry

The latest rebar updates allow the placement of rebar as concrete objects that are of free-form. Also, it allows the reinforcement of concrete elements that are imported and their varying rebar distribution is improved.

 

These are just a glimpse of updates in Revit 2018. There are many more interesting features such as Rebar Graphical Constraints in 3D, Additional Steel Connections, Collaboration for Revit, Work-sharing, Parametric components, and much more.

ETABS 2016 16.2.0 Enhancements

This version of ETABS is stacked with stunning features for Analysis, Modelling, Result Display and Output.

Analysis

  1. a) Creep & Shrinkage: This feature includes the rebar effect, which can help reduce axial shortening of walls and columns. The feature lets you choose two options for Longitudinal Rebar Ratio- From Design and User Specified Ratio and two for Vertical Rebar Ratio- From Design and User Specified Ratio.

 

  1. b) Modal Damping: This feature provides more conservative and realistic results through linear and nonlinear direct-integration time-history analysis. Here you can choose options for Viscous Proportional Damping and Additional Modal Damping.

Modelling

The new updates consist of new codes for shrinkage, creep, and stiffness aging. The models are New Zealand Standard 3101-2006, Australian Standard 3600-2009, Eurocode 2-2004, and GL 2000.

Result Display and Output

The result is displayed on slab cracked-width on Eurocode 2-2004.