Minnesota Structural and Ethics 24 PDH Discount Package 2

This online engineering PDH course provides guidance on the basic biological structure of wood and provides a basis for interpreting its properties in an engineering context. By understanding the function of wood in the living tree, we can better understand the strengths and limitations it presents as a material.

 

Wood is a complex biological structure, a composite of many chemistries and cell types acting together to serve the needs of a living plant. Attempting to understand wood in the context of wood technology, we have often overlooked the key and basic fact that wood evolved over the course of millions of years to serve three main functions in plants― conduction of water from the roots to the leaves, mechanical support of the plant body, and storage of biochemicals. There is no property of wood—physical, mechanical, chemical, biological, or technological—that is not fundamentally derived from the fact that wood is formed to meet the needs of the living tree. To accomplish any of these functions, wood must have cells that are designed and interconnected in ways sufficient to perform these functions. These three functions have influenced the evolution of approximately 20,000 different species of woody plants, each with unique properties, uses, and capabilities, in both plant and human contexts.

 

This 2 PDH online course is applicable to civil, structural or geotechnical engineers, as well as design and construction personnel who are interested in gaining a better understanding of the structures and functions of wood or who are involved in the design and planning of wood structures.

This online engineering PDH course discusses the macroscopic physical properties of wood with emphasis on their relationship with moisture content.

 

Wood, like many natural materials, is hygroscopic; it takes on moisture from the surrounding environment. Moisture exchange between wood and air depends on the relative hu­midity and temperature of the air and the current amount of water in the wood. This moisture relationship has an impor­tant influence on wood properties and performance. Many of the challenges of using wood as an engineering material arise from changes in moisture content or an abundance of moisture within the wood.

 

This 2 PDH online course is applicable to civil, structural or geotechnical engineers, as well as design and construction personnel who are interested in gaining a better understanding in fire safety of wood construction or who are involved in the design and planning of wood structures.

This online engineering PDH course provides information on the most recent research on properties of the wood cell wall at the nanoscale level. It discusses the mechanical properties of wood, the nature and magnitude of variability in its properties as well as the effect of growth features.

 

Many of the mechanical properties of wood tabulated in this course were derived from extensive sampling and analysis procedures. These properties are represented as the average mechanical properties of the species. Some properties, such as tension parallel to the grain, and all properties for some imported species are based on a more limited number of specimens that were not subjected to the same sampling and analysis procedures. The appropriateness of these latter properties to represent the average properties of a species is uncertain; nevertheless, the properties represent the best information available.

 

This 4 PDH online course is applicable to civil, structural or geotechnical engineers, as well as design and construction personnel who are interested in gaining a better understanding in the mechanical properties of wood or who are involved in the design and planning of wood structures.

This online engineering PDH course provides guidance on joint designs required for wood fastenings for utmost rigidity, strength, and service. It discusses each type of fastening requiring joint designs adapted to the strength properties of wood along and across the grain and to dimensional changes that may occur with changes in moisture content.

 

The strength and stability of any structure depend heavily on the fastenings that hold its parts together. One prime advantage of wood as a structural material is the ease with which wood structural parts can be joined together with a wide variety of fastenings such as nails, spikes, screws, bolts, lag screws, drift pins, staples and metal connectors of various types.

 

This 3 PDH online course is applicable to civil, structural or geotechnical engineers, as well as design and construction personnel who are interested in gaining a better understanding in wood fastenings or who are involved in the design and planning of wood structures.

This online engineering PDH course presents the types of adhesives and their properties, bonding processes, bonded joints, testing and performance. It discusses how adhesives can effectively transfer and distribute stresses, thereby increasing the strength and stiffness of the composite.

 

Adhesive bonding of wood plays an increasing role in the forest products industry and is a key factor for efficiently utilizing our timber resource. The main use of adhesives is in the manufacture of building materials, including plywood, oriented strandboard, particleboard, fiberboard, structural composite lumber, doors, windows and frames, and factory-laminated wood products. Adhesives are also used in the assembly of furniture and cabinets, manufacture of engineered wood products, and construction of residential and commercial structures.

 

This 3 PDH online course is applicable to civil, structural or geotechnical engineers, as well as design and construction personnel who are interested in gaining a better understanding in adhesive bonding of wood materials.

This online engineering PDH course describes the features of various types of building systems. It places emphasis on how these systems have adapted to the use of modern materials and techniques.

 

In North America, most housing and commercial structures built prior to the 20th century used wood as the major structural material. The abundant wood resource formed the basic structure for most houses, commercial buildings, bridges, and utility poles. Today, houses and many light commercial and industrial buildings are made using modern wood structural materials. Recently, there has been increased interest in using wood for various types of transportation structures, including highway bridges. Furthermore, prefabricated floor and wall panels along with prefabricated roof and floor trusses or I-joists are replacing piece-by-piece on-site construction with dimension lumber.

 

This 2 PDH online course is applicable to civil, structural or geotechnical engineers, as well as design and construction personnel who are interested in gaining a better understanding in use of wood in buildings and bridges.

This online engineering PDH course discusses the fire safety code requirements along with the related fire performance data of wood in construction and provides information on fire behavior and fire performance characteristics of wood products.

 

Fire safety is an important concern in all types of construc­tion. The high level of national concern for fire safety is reflected in limitations and design requirements in building codes. These code requirements and related fire performance data are discussed in the context of fire safety design and evaluation in the initial section of this course. Because basic data on fire behavior of wood products are needed to evaluate fire safety for wood construction, the second major section of this course provides additional information on fire behavior and fire performance characteristics of wood products. The course concludes with a discussion of fire-retardant treatments that can be used to reduce the combus­tibility of wood.

 

This 2 PDH online course is applicable to civil, structural or geotechnical engineers, as well as design and construction personnel who are interested in gaining a better understanding in fire safety of wood construction or who are involved in the design and planning of wood structures.

This online engineering PDH course provides guidance on the design and construction of conduits, culverts, and pipes, as well as design procedures for trench/embankment earth loadings, highway loadings, railroad loadings, surface concentrated loadings, and internal/external fluid pressures.

 

In general, reinforced concrete conduits, culverts and pipes are used for dams, urban levees, and other levees where public safety is at risk or substantial property damage could occur. Corrugated metal pipes are acceptable through agricultural levees where conduits are 900-mm (36-in.) diameter and where levee embankments are not higher than 4 m (12 ft) above the conduit invert. Inlet structures, intake towers, gate wells, and outlet structures are usually concrete. However, corrugated metal structures may be used in agricultural and rural levees.

 

This 4 PDH online course is applicable to civil, structural and geotechnical engineers, as well as design and construction personnel involved with the design and installation of conduits, culverts and pipes.

In this online engineering PDH course, background on the philosophical models that guide ethical behavior is discussed and then applied to specific situations in engineering codes of ethics. This course is based on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Professional Practice Curriculum, Volume 8, Section: Engineering Ethics.

 

Many engineering organizations have drafted codes of ethics to which their members are required to commit.  Generally, these codes are quite similar and are based on a few fundamental principles which provide guidance to professional engineers in common situations. Nevertheless, there are many difficult or ambiguous situations in which the best ethical solution is difficult to determine.

 

This 2 PDH online course is intended primarily for engineers seeking to learn ethical principles and how to apply them to their professional practice.