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RE: ENGINEERING 101_10: CONCRETE ANCHORS
Those are great descriptions. I've worked with all types setting machinery. They can come with their challenges from a practical sense. Nothing like drilling into rebar right where a wedge anchor needs to go. :)
That can be its own topic! The number of times Ive seen contractors randomly drill into concrete hit a rebar and chew right through it blindly is roughly equal to the number of weeks ive worked as an engineer!!! I try to tell contractors that everyday USE A PACHOMETER AND LOCATE THE REINFORCEMENT!!!
You know I was thinking about what you said. After spending over 7 years moving heavy equipment, I can remember some issues with anchoring. As time went on (I moved machinery a couple different periods of my life) I noticed we did less anchoring.
The past few years, if a company wanted us to anchor it would have to be in the contract. It cost extra so that was rarely done.
But another thing throughout my career moving machines, we hardly ever made any decisions on final placement. Sometimes there were situations where there wasn't much room to even shift things a little bit. That being said, I bet if there was rebar in the way, they were drilling right through it. I'd personally rather take a 4-hour lunch break than have to drill through rebar with the bits we had. :)
sounds like you had some shitty drill bits! Today, we have drill bits so damn powerful that they drill through rebar without you realizing it!
In case you don't know, mechanical anchors typically have a 5 to 1 safety factor. So the true value for the ideal condition is actually 5x what the rated load is!
These days, installing an anchor is cheap, so cheap in fact that sometimes we wont even get a change order if we had to install 10 extra anchors. It would almost cost more labor to process the paperwork than to just simply shut up and install it!
What do you do now for work?
You know I was considering contracting and getting my Class A CDL for a bit and I had an opportunity to be the estimator.
I ended up going with writing. My wife already works full time, so I'm able to work and raise our two boys full time. :)