Class Projects

CES5801 Design and Construction of Timber Structures

The primary objective of this course was to learn the complete design of a wood structure. This included not only the study of wood as a building material but the design of an actual structure for all code prescribed loads. The project deals with the complete design of a retail warehouse, including the vertical load system, the lateral load system and all necessary connections. Sawn lumber, glued laminated timber, plywood and all types of wood connectors were covered. This course covered both ASD and LRFD timber design standards, the computation of design loads, including lateral loads, following up to date building codes and specifications (e.g. NDS 2005, ASCE 7-05, FBC 2007, ACI 318-08, etc.) and analysis and design of diaphragm/shearwall structural components.

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CES5606 Topics in Steel Design

The intention of CES5606 was to develop a working understanding of the analysis, response, and behavior of structural steel frames, bracing, and semi-rigid frame connections and to be able to apply this knowledge to building structures. The course also covered a lot of history on how the AISC Steel Manual specifications came to be; including a detailed look at the effective length factor, amplified first-order elastic analysis and the Direct Analysis Method. For the final project I developed a MathCAD worksheet to compute and display the initial connection stiffness, ultimate moment capacity, shape parameter, reference plastic rotation and beam-line plots for single and double web angle, top and seat angle, and combined double web angle with top and seat angle connections. The worksheet was developed using the Chen-Kishi Three-Parameter Power Model and requires very little input from the user.

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Dalton_Ferguson_Final.xmcd | Dalton_Ferguson_Final.pdf

CGN4910 Structures Capstone

This course was designed to develop an appreciation for the role of analysis in the design of structures, develop skills in understanding fundamental behavior of structures, develop skills in the modeling of structures, demonstrate communication skills required for engineering practice and develop an appreciation of the skills necessary to design engineering structures.

This class also required the completion of a comprehensive design, including construction plans and specifications, for a large open air basketball pavillion. As well as presentation of that design in a professional manner, both written and orally. Our team's design included a large spanning radial glulam arches with a metal roof that incorporated a 40' X 66' skylight. I decided to draft a 3D model of the structure in AutoCAD, applied the textures (e.g. bricks, wood, glass) in Google Sketchup and then imported the final model into Google Earth where I made a 3D motion video of our structure in its virtual location. Click on the 3D Model video below to see it.

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Downloads:

Footing and Column Design.pdf | Overview.pdf | Open Air Pavilion.pptx | Final Submittal.doc

CWR4202 Hydraulics

This course picks up where CWR 3201 - Hydrodynamics left off. The material included a comprehensive look at pipe and open channel flow, pipe friction, pipe networks, pumps and turbines, free surface profiles and hydraulic jump calculations to name a few. The final project included the use of pipe and open conduit flow equations to design both a pipe network that could withstand a broken line and a flood wall for a river basin which had two separate bridges crossing it. The pipe network had to divert 24 mgd of water to 8 different locations (different amounts to each location) around Gainesville, Fl. and had to be able to withstand a broken line in any of the network's various sized pipes; the pump design was an integral part of the project. The river basin, which a flood wall was designed for, had to be evaluated for both a 5 year and a 100 year flood situation; both conditions had a hydraulic jump caused by the choking of the river around the piers of the two bridges. The flood wall had to be designed with a freeboard of two feet over the anticipated water level of the five year flood; the height of the water level was determined by the use of the manning equation in a direct step and standard step method using excel.

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Downloads:

5 Year.pdf | 100 Year.pdf | 5 Year.xlsx | 100 Year.xlsx | Pipe Network.xls

CES4702 Analysis and Design in Reinforced Concrete

Topics included stress-strain relationships for concrete and reinforcement steel; theory of shear and flexural behavior and comprehensive design of beams, columns, slab-floor systems and footings. All topics strictly followed ACI Code (ACI 318-08). The final project included designing a 2nd story transfer girder, supporting columns and footings for a 4 story concrete framed building. The final design included construction drawings of the girder, columns and footings; load, shear and flexure design calculations and factored shear and moment diagrams for the beams and columns.

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Downloads:

Layout 1.pdf | Layout 2.pdf | CES4702 Design Project.dwg

CGN2328 AutoCAD

General course in Computer Aided Drawing; completed excercises using general and in-depth commands to draw various 2D and 3D drawings. Midterm covered sub-division design and included completing drawing in an alotted amount of time. The final included a detailed drawing of the University of Florida Women's Softball Complex in which students had to draw key elements that were not included in the original file.

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Downloads:

CGN2328 Midterm.dwg | CGN2328 Final.dwg