Turpin & Associates
Structural Engineering
Below are some of the services that we currently provide:
Structural Calculation Packages. If you have a structure that is already designed and code compliant, we can prepare a structural calculation package for vertical loads and/or lateral loads as needed. We will provide red line markups if changes are needed.
Structural Design. We can work with architects, drafters, or owners to coordinate and develop drawing and calculation packages for your permit application
Emergency Repairs. Often insurance companies or mortgage companies require a building permit for a repair plan before issuing reimbursement for the design fees needed to get to that stage. Most often this happens from fire damage, water damage, disasters, accidents, or tenant damage. If you have an emergency that is likely to be covered by insurance or other financing that is delayed, we may be able to work with payment deferred until plans are approved by permitting agency.
Comprehensive structural design for decks and carports whether free standing or attached to a building. If you have a project that doesn't need much architectural design but does require structural engineering, we may be able to prepare the drawings for you.
Structural Modelling. In some case such as irregular structures or when using viscous dampers, building codes may require multimodal response spectrum, time history analysis or nonlinear hinging/collapse analysis. We can create a model with appropriate 3D structural modelling software where it is impractical to do such calculations by hand.
Tools and Methods
Software tools in the construction industry have been developed so rapidly that often times there are professionals doing tasks by hand while software tools for doing that task are already in third generation of development. We are familiar with a broad range of tools and traditional methods allowing us to work with documents provided by clients and other professionals.
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At Turpin and Associates, we develop flexible and easy to check calculation packages using Mathcad, which allows us to rapidly repeat similar calculations for increased efficiency on customer projects. These calculations present very similarly to hand calculations, and can be checked by hand with a calculator from the hard copy.
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We are also familiar with a variety of computer aided drawing softwares, including:
* Adobe Bluebeam PDF editor, which is useful for communicating simple markups or making simple illustrations - including scaling dimensions precisely from hand PDFs.
* AutoCAD and Draftsigh, two programs that use the decades long industry standard DWG drawing format.
* Revit and Archicad, industry leaders for 3D architectural modelling and Building Information Modelling.
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We may use 3D structural modelling software programs only where necessary, such as when building code requires it. (See "Structural Modelling" below.)