Studies have shown that a structural engineer's carbon handprint can be 350 times greater than a firm’s organisational carbon footprint.
There are two ways that engineers can employ modern structural analysis software and workflows to optimise our designs: detailed derisking of a single concept and exploration of an increasing number of concepts.
1. Reducing risk
The first is to mitigate risk of a certain concept. Better tools allow us to model scenarios with less effort, more certainty and cut back on excess material that is not needed. When there is more uncertainty, we build in safety factors to ensure that certain things do not fail. When Brooklyn Bridge, the world's first suspension bridge was built, the safety factor was 6. In a way, it was the proof of concept. When the Golden Gate Bridge was designed and constructed just over 50 years later, we were more certain and were able to reduce the safety factor to 2.4.
2. Exploring options
The second way to optimise our designs is by exploring different options. Each time we explore a different option, we evaluate a different method of achieving our objectives including the benefits and tradeoffs. It is through this design exploration stage that we can make large scale decisions that have large impacts.
Up until recent years, these large-scale design decisions are often based on very high-level schematic design. However, we're finally starting to see that the tools available to us can carry out design explorations at a much more detailed level. The possibilities this unlocks are endless because it means that we get to holistically explore many design options before finally making a data informed decision. This means that our engineering software must also be able to keep up with the number of options that our engineers want to explore and provide feedback in a way that allows them to act on them.
What Oasys have accomplished with Oasys GSA in recent years has been revolutionary, making it better suited for these design explorations. We've created a whole new way of building models that lends itself well to many iterations though our Grasshopper components. This makes it exceedingly easier to create detailed structural analysis models and explore completely different schemes at the stage of design.
At the same time, we recognise that when carrying out finer evaluations of a single concept, sometimes you need to make small tweaks to the model. For that, we've built out GSA's unique two-layer system to facilitate effortless changes while still maintaining transparency. It is now easier than ever to construct and modify the structural model in the design layer, while still being able to view and tweak analytical aspects at the finite element level through the analysis layer.
Our engineering marvels today may not be as “flashy” as the first time a suspension bridge was built. But that is a good thing, because instead, what we have done now is build that same structure thousands of times and thousands of ways in simulation. What ends up being constructed is the most performant and sustainable option out of all the ones that were simulated.