Should have installed them on the left side.

I blame global climate change.

A plane is flying from Warsaw to Paris. The pilot announces that they are passing over Rotterdam, and the world's largest container ship is visible out of the windows on the right side.

POOF! The plane disappears in mid air- no trace of it is ever found.

A later analysis revealed that all the Poles had moved into the right half-plane.



...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer.

I wonder if this is connected to all the engineers in that thread last month, bragging that 50% was a passing grade in their classes...

So the guy that made them were not too bright?

This is what happens when you hire foreign engineers and they use metric math for American products.

I was told there would be no math.

mr_a: ...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer.

Or a mechanical one.

/loves me some sisotool and ident.

mr_a: A plane is flying from Warsaw to Paris. The pilot announces that they are passing over Rotterdam, and the world's largest container ship is visible out of the windows on the right side.

POOF! The plane disappears in mid air- no trace of it is ever found.

A later analysis revealed that all the Poles had moved into the right half-plane.



...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer.

Groan.

Engineering Jokes suck.

Ok! Ok! I must have, I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place or something. Shiat. I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail.

instability of electric field joke? I'm guessing.. not an electrical engineer

OH GOD, THE GREYS ARE ATTACKING.

were the engineers grads of UT?
I think the problem is that they don't use tapes and slide rules to measure stuff down in Texas the just go from fingertip to fingertip to get their numbers.

/kidding
//at least there wasn't an athletic event taking place.

mr_a: A plane is flying from Warsaw to Paris. The pilot announces that they are passing over Rotterdam, and the world's largest container ship is visible out of the windows on the starboatd side.

POOF! The plane disappears in mid air- no trace of it is ever found.

A later analysis revealed that all the Poles had moved into the right half-plane.



...If you don't get it, you are probably not a Naval Academy graduate.

/FIFY

Dasng sticky keys

It was only good luck that the day was rainy and windy, leaving the usually bustling stadium empty...

... Because there was ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION between the WIND and the WIND LOADING that finally brought the pole down.

jimmyjackfunk: were the engineers grads of UT?

/kidding
//at least there wasn't an athletic event taking place.

Nope. The same guys that designed the '99 bonfire.

vudukungfu: Dasng sticky keys

I have to remember that lame excuse. My keys stick too.

school Superintendent Charles Machesky said. "That's our phys ed facility," he said. "The potential for some really nasty stuff was there."

"You should see the cretins we hire for that department" Charles went on "Really scares the bejesus out of me"

DrRatchet: It was only good luck that the day was rainy and windy, leaving the usually bustling stadium empty...

... Because there was ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION between the WIND and the WIND LOADING that finally brought the pole down.

Anyone who wants to rush out and blame the company who put the towers up isn't seeing the big picture. Of course the wind was a contributing factor, but that is what engineers do, they are supposed to take into consideration environmental factors like wind. What is that show called, "gone in seconds" or something like that, they did an episode of towers falling and were explaining about the various designs and the stability wires that were installed to prevent falling of the towers and allow sway during high winds. Of course if your designers goof on math calculations then the tower probably won't hold in 300 mph F5 winds let alone a small breeze.

darkscout: Or a mechanical one.

/loves me some sisotool and ident.

Or a materials one.

Silicon Sam: jimmyjackfunk: were the engineers grads of UT?

/kidding
//at least there wasn't an athletic event taking place.

Nope. The same guys that designed the '99 bonfire.

I thought that was Texas A&M.

daffy: vudukungfu: Dasng sticky keys

I have to remember that lame excuse. My keys stick too.

Limp excuse

vudukungfu: daffy: vudukungfu: Dasng sticky keys

I have to remember that lame excuse. My keys stick too.

Limp excuse

I know that, but it's sounds better that the truth. I suffer from chronic pain and am on almost 20 prescriptions a day. Who would buy that one?

I bet someone forgot to carry the one. It's either that or a goddamn minus sign.

What most disturbed me was the quote in the article about shaving the safety tolerance to near zero is common practice.

Can anyone else speak to that as a structural engineer?

My safety tolerances are HUGE for what I build and people generally have no direct contact with the structure. Not like a light pole near a stadium is.

mr_a:
...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer have some chance of getting layed.

mr_a: A plane is flying from Warsaw to Paris. The pilot announces that they are passing over Rotterdam, and the world's largest container ship is visible out of the windows on the right side.

POOF! The plane disappears in mid air- no trace of it is ever found.

A later analysis revealed that all the Poles had moved into the right half-plane.


...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer.

Doesn't it only take one pole in the RHP to cause the system to go unstable?

DrRatchet: It was only good luck that the day was rainy and windy, leaving the usually bustling stadium empty...

... Because there was ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION between the WIND and the WIND LOADING that finally brought the pole down.

I came here to say this.

Coastalgrl: What most disturbed me was the quote in the article about shaving the safety tolerance to near zero is common practice.

Can anyone else speak to that as a structural engineer?

My safety tolerances are HUGE for what I build and people generally have no direct contact with the structure. Not like a light pole near a stadium is.

There is an old joke that says... "Any farmer can build a barn that will last more then 100 years, but it takes a civil engineer to build a barn that lasts EXACTLY 100 years."

Coastalgrl: What most disturbed me was the quote in the article about shaving the safety tolerance to near zero is common practice.

Can anyone else speak to that as a structural engineer?

My safety tolerances are HUGE for what I build and people generally have no direct contact with the structure. Not like a light pole near a stadium is.

I do not know for sure, but I have heard that civil and structural engineers commonly design to factors of safter greater than 5. Only aeros design factor of safeties close to 1 because anything greater and the plane won't fly.

Also, any factor of safety should at least be 1. If near zero means less than one, that means that it was designed to fail (or changed into an unsafe design due to other factors).

Coastalgrl: What most disturbed me was the quote in the article about shaving the safety tolerance to near zero is common practice.

Can anyone else speak to that as a structural engineer?

My safety tolerances are HUGE for what I build and people generally have no direct contact with the structure. Not like a light pole near a stadium is.

I do not know for sure, but I have heard that civil and structural engineers commonly design to factors of safter greater than 5. Only aeros design factor of safeties close to 1 because anything greater and the plane won't fly.

Also, any factor of safety should at least be 1. If near zero means less than one, that means that it was designed to fail (or changed into an unsafe design due to other factors).

That makes sense but I dont consider light poles to be in the aeronautic category since they arent flying. Id put that under structural. I would hope that civil engineers know how to do wind loading with all those bridges.

Coastalgrl: Can anyone else speak to that as a structural engineer?

How you doin'?

Aerospace structures here. Based on the skimpy details in the article, the pole was originally designed with a certain safety factor, but a miscalculation left it smaller than desired. Sounds like they then changed something in the lighting which (I would assume) added weight. The company believed their safety factor was now very close to 1, when really because of the earlier error it was now less than 1.

This is a good lesson in why you maintain a healthy safety factor: engineers make mistakes, and you don't want people to die as a result. A safety factor of 1.1 is worthless unless you are really freakin' sure of your calculations and your assumed loading conditions.

(Just to scare some people, aircraft typically have very low safety factors for a lot of components, like 1.2 or so, to save weight)

This is bad news... for Obama

CreepyBasementGuy: Silicon Sam: jimmyjackfunk: were the engineers grads of UT?

/kidding
//at least there wasn't an athletic event taking place.

Nope. The same guys that designed the '99 bonfire.

I thought that was Texas A&M.

It was. Sam is from Austin. Home of UT and sworn enemy of A&M.

mr_a: A plane is flying from Warsaw to Paris. The pilot announces that they are passing over Rotterdam, and the world's largest container ship is visible out of the windows on the right side.

POOF! The plane disappears in mid air- no trace of it is ever found.

A later analysis revealed that all the Poles had moved into the right half-plane.



...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer. not a virgin

mr_a: ...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer.

Heh... you said, "pole"

pope183: mr_a: A plane is flying from Warsaw to Paris. The pilot announces that they are passing over Rotterdam, and the world's largest container ship is visible out of the windows on the right side.

POOF! The plane disappears in mid air- no trace of it is ever found.

A later analysis revealed that all the Poles had moved into the right half-plane.



...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer. not a virgin


So you have to understand that joke in order to have sex?

Structural engineer here... Material properties are determined in a lab and the values are usually discounted for some standard deviations with values such as .66 or .9 depending on use of the material such as in bending or shear. Then there are safety factors for where the materail is being used, schools, emergency, low-hazard and the like.

From what I read the engineers simply calculated the requirements to exactly the minimum, for which they can not be faulted.

One of favorite sayings is "anyone can make a building stand up, it takes and engineer to make it barely stand up" only not so much in this case.

Deport 'em all. Poles are nothing but trouble.

aircraft typically have very low safety factors for a lot of components, like 1.2 or so, to save weight

Airliners are not normally operated near airframe structural limits because that upsets the passengers. Engines, on the other hand, are designed to run as hot as possible without creep or whatever causing a high speed turbine blade to bend a millimeter and blow up the wing.

DontBeStupid: mr_a:
...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer have some chance of getting layed.

Glad I'm not a bricklayer then. Now getting laid on the other hand... we all know what that's like.



/mr_a: You ain't one of those systems creeps are ya? Yer kind isn't welcome 'round here.
//legrandbatard: i honestly have no idea what they are talking about. ; )
///MechE FTW

It was only good luck that the day was rainy and windy, leaving the usually bustling stadium empty

If it weren't for lucky storm, would the pole still have fallen?
I get that a particular construction company is repsonsible for an inordinantly high failure-rate, but still.... what a goofy statement. Glad no one was hurt.

What's the difference between a mechanical engineer and a civil engineer?

Mechanical Engineers make bombers.
Civil Engineers make targets.


Engineering jokes ftw :-D

Aerospace engineers can also get away with low FS because their materials, whose behaviors are well understood and predictable, are also manufactured to very exacting specifications.

Make sure they didn't manufacture these poles

daffy:

I know that, but it's sounds better that the truth. I suffer from chronic pain and am on almost 20 prescriptions a day. Who would buy that one?

LOLPerscriptionpad?

ZAZ: Should have installed them on the left side.

mr_a:
...If you don't get it, you are probably not an electrical engineer.

Or anyone whose field involves decaying (or runaway) exponentials.

LedZepplinRuleCoastalgrl: Can anyone else speak to that as a structural engineer?

How you doin'?

Im doing good besides this lovely head cold.

Good to know. This is why this 1.1 safety factor is completely foreign concept to me.

I design using a SF of 2.5 depending on how crappy my data is that I use for site analysis. Add in the 50-100 year storm surge, and expected Sea Level Rise to really make things expensive.

But then the managers end up doing engineering by committee which completely voids everything above.