JMVC Consulting Structural Engineers

28/05/2026

A study just published in Buildings (MDPI, May 12, 2026) presents a faster way to assess how a building would collapse if fire, wind, and an earthquake hit in sequence. The authors built a physics constrained neural network that generates collapse fragility curves for these cascading scenarios without running thousands of hours of non-linear analysis.

The clever piece is a thermodynamic rule embedded in the model itself: it cannot predict that a fire-damaged structure becomes stronger. That guardrail is what separates this work from typical machine learning shortcuts in structural reliability.

For practicing engineers working on hospitals, schools, and tall residential towers, this is the direction the profession is moving. The 2026 NEHRP Provisions and ASCE 7-22 already signal that multi-hazard thinking is expected for higher Risk Categories.

Should multi-hazard fragility checks become a standard part of design for Risk Category III and IV buildings, or stay as a specialty study?

27/05/2026

27/05/2026

The Portland International Airport terminal is finishing the second phase of its mass timber expansion this summer, and the structural engineering is worth a closer look. The 18 million pound mass timber roof sits on 34 steel Y columns, each topped with a friction pendulum seismic isolator. According to Engineering News Record (May 25, 2026 edition) and structural engineer KPFF, the system is designed to keep the terminal operational after a Magnitude 9.0 Cascadia Subduction Zone event, a level of performance well above the prescriptive code minimum.

The roof was prefabricated in segments of about 1 million pounds each and lifted into place during active airport operations. Regional sourcing of CLT and Mass Plywood Panels within 300 miles of the site also supports embodied carbon goals under emerging low carbon concrete and timber codes.

This is what performance based design looks like in 2026: resilience, sustainability, and constructability solved together.

What part of the design interests you most?

26/05/2026

Chengdu Greenland Tower

26/05/2026

Ever opened a set of structural drawings and felt like you were looking at a different language? You are not alone. Most homeowners and even contractors miss critical information buried in those sheets. Here is a quick walkthrough to help you actually understand what you are looking at.

A structural drawing set is organized in a deliberate sequence. The general notes come first, usually listing applicable codes (IBC, ASCE 7, ACI 318, AISC 360, NDS), design loads, material specifications, and contractor responsibilities. Always read this page. It tells you the rules of the project.

The foundation plan shows footings, stem walls, slab thickness, anchor bolt locations, and rebar layout. The framing plans show joists, rafters, beams, posts, and shear wall locations on each floor and roof level.

Schedules tabulate beams, columns, footings, and hardware. They are referenced from the plans using callouts. Without reading the schedules, you cannot build what is shown.

Finally, the details sheet shows exactly how connections are made: hold-downs, ledger bolts, post bases, beam pockets. This is where most field errors happen.

If your contractor is skipping the details sheet, that is a red flag.

Have you ever caught a discrepancy on your structural drawings before construction started?

26/05/2026

A new peer reviewed study published in Nature Scientific Reports examined how to make new concrete actually stick to old concrete, a question every repair engineer faces on parking decks, bridge overlays, and seismic retrofits. The researchers compared a roughened surface, an SBR-200 polymer bonding agent, embedded mechanical connectors, and the combined use of agent and connectors. The combined detail consistently produced the best bond performance, while the single treatment options each left strength on the table.

At JMVC Consulting Structural Engineers, we see overlay interfaces fail when designers treat surface preparation as a finish item instead of a structural detail. This work supports specifying both a bonding agent and mechanical connectors when the interface carries significant shear, with trial bond pulls before production placement to verify the system in field conditions.

What is the most common overlay detail you specify on rehabilitation projects?

25/05/2026

The Polish National Stadium, officially known as PGE Narodowy im. Kazimierza Górskiego.

25/05/2026

Live load or dead load? If you have ever read a permit set and wondered what those terms actually mean, here is the simple breakdown.

Dead loads are the permanent, fixed weights of a structure. The framing, sheathing, roofing, drywall, mechanical systems, and anything else that stays in place forever. These weights do not change once the building is finished.

Live loads are temporary or movable. People walking through the space, furniture, vehicles in a garage, snow on a roof, even storage in a warehouse. They come and go, and they vary based on how the space is used.

Why does this matter to you as a homeowner, contractor, or developer? Your structural engineer designs every beam, column, and footing to handle both at the same time, and the load combinations required by ASCE 7 and the IBC dictate the safety factors applied. Misclassify a load and the member may end up undersized, leading to cracks, excessive deflection, or worse.

If a contractor ever suggests skipping calculations because the addition is "small," that is your cue to call a licensed structural engineer.

What is one structural term you have always wondered about but never asked?

25/05/2026

A new state of the art review in the Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering (Springer Nature, 2026) takes a hard look at how reinforced concrete buildings actually fail during earthquakes, and the authors deliver a sharp conclusion. Ordinary design procedures, which check gravity, seismic, and abnormal load cases one at a time, do not catch progressive collapse triggered by earthquake damage.

The review pulls together experimental tests, nonlinear simulations, and probabilistic frameworks. It makes the case that progressive collapse should be treated as part of the seismic design procedure itself, not a separate analysis. For practicing engineers, that means tying together ASCE 7-22 robustness checks, ASCE/SEI 76-23, and ACI 318 Chapter 18 detailing into one coordinated assessment.

At JMVC Consulting Structural Engineers, we read these reviews so the projects we deliver stay aligned with the direction codes are moving.

Should progressive collapse checks be standard practice for every Risk Category III and IV building?

25/05/2026

23/05/2026

A quiet but significant change took effect this year. The 2024 International Building Code, now in force in Georgia, Wyoming, and North Dakota as of January 1, 2026, is the first US model code to require tornado specific loads for critical buildings.

Per the International Code Council and ASCE 7-22 Chapter 32, schools, hospitals, fire and police stations, and emergency operations centers in tornado prone regions must now be designed against a 1700 year tornado event. The new load case rarely controls the main lateral system, but it routinely governs cladding, parapets, soffits, and roof corner uplift on Risk Category III and IV buildings.

For owners of essential facilities in these states, this is not a minor permit footnote. It changes connection details, anchorage capacities, and architectural envelope specifications.

Is your community building or renovating a school or hospital this year? Have you asked the design team how the new tornado provisions affect the project?