Structural engineering involves the
analysis and design of the built environment (buildings, bridges, equipment
supports, towers and walls). Those concentrating on buildings are sometimes
informally referred to as "building engineers". Structural engineers
require expertise in strength of materials, structural analysis, and in
predicting structural load such as from weight of the building, occupants and
contents, and extreme events such as wind, rain, ice, and seismic design of
structures which is referred to as earthquake engineering. Architectural
Engineers sometimes incorporate structural as one aspect of their designs; the
structural discipline when practiced as a specialty works closely with
architects and other engineering specialists.
Structural
engineering is concerned with the structural design and structural analysis of buildings, bridges, towers, flyovers (overpasses),
tunnels, off shore structures like oil and gas fields in the sea, aerostructure and other
structures. This involves identifying the loads which act upon a structure and
the forces and stresses which arise within that structure due to those loads,
and then designing the structure to successfully support and resist those
loads. The loads can be self weight of the structures, other dead load, live
loads, moving (wheel) load, wind load, earthquake load, load from temperature
change etc. The structural engineer must design structures to be safe for their
users and to successfully fulfill the function they are designed for (to be serviceable). Due to the
nature of some loading conditions, sub-disciplines within structural
engineering have emerged, including wind engineering and
earthquake engineering.