The Mathcad Team
Next in the series of our ‘Meet the Mathcad Users’ (see what Eva had to say last time) is the staff from the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) Structures Design Office.
Thanks to modern-day luxuries and technology, interviews can be conducted in myriad ways. For this one, I traded a few email messages with some folks over at FDOT, and then began the interview (asynchronously, via email).
Without further ado, below is our interview with the Florida DOT and their exceptional use of Mathcad.
PTC: From what PTC understands, FDOT structures has standardized on Mathcad for calculation software. Is that true? Can you elaborate a bit more on what it means to be standardized (as in, everyone is asked to use it, they have to use it, etc.)?
FDOT: Many of our Mathcad software programs work in conjunction with FDOT Standard Drawings. These standard drawings of a transportation structural element such as a bridge beam or a box culvert typically have variables like A, B, C for dimensions or other parameters instead of a specific dimension/parameter as would be found in a regular set of plans. We then use a Mathcad program to design or analyze the structure and the program outputs the values for A, B, C. We do not require the use of our Mathcad programs, but we think we have provided an incentive to do so by providing a design method of standard drawings and Mathcad program that is very efficient and economical.
PTC: About how many people use it on a regular basis?
FDOT: Practically all structural engineers in transportation in Florida use Mathcad regularly or semi-regularly. A rough guess of a total number is probably over a thousand. This guess is based on the fact that we have an email distribution list of people who want to be informed of FDOT Structures software news. That list that has 700+ email addresses, and we deal with approximately 400 engineering firms as well.
PTC: With all of those Mathcad, how did FDOT Structures go about educating everyone on Mathcad?
FDOT: As for knowing how to use Mathcad in general, almost all engineers used Mathcad in college and are well-versed in it. As for FDOT programs, one of the greatest assets of Mathcad is it requires little instruction, all of the calculations are in the open and how to use and understand what our programs are doing is fairly self-evident. Someone who is new to our programs and not too familiar with Mathcad can be given a brief and simple explanation of how our programs work, the basic steps of data input, output, and running the analysis. The learning curve is very short. And since the basics and layout of our programs are very similar, once you learn how to run one of our programs, you pretty much know how to run all of them.
PTC: There are lots of choices among software programs for performing calculations. Why did FDOT select Mathcad?
FDOT: All of the calculations are in the open. This makes it easy for users to understand what the program is doing and allows them to change what they as the Engineer disagree with. Why Mathcad over a spreadsheet like Excel? I would describe the structural engineering calculations we do as complicated, and are done many time, maybe a dozen times. This is what Mathcad does best. A spreadsheet is best at doing maybe a simpler calculations a thousand times.
PTC: What one or two features among others of Mathcad have really proven beneficial in the FDOT structures group?
FDOT: We use Mathcad’s programming relatively more than functions and simple equations, if programming capability were not at the level it is, much of our software would not have been possible. Early structural engineering programs outputted everything in tabular format. The graphical output ability of Mathcad is a pleasant surprise. For instance, to see forces, stresses, or deflections against a profile view of a structural element, versus seeing sheets and sheets of numbers outputted in tables allows an engineer to visualize the analysis better.
PTC: As a civil engineer myself (I have my stamp in Massachusetts!), I know that peer review of work is critically important. Has Mathcad played a role in that process for you at all? If so, can you elaborate on it?
FDOT: Peer review as you describe isn’t formally used in our QC/review process. However, I and others in my office do use it as a self-QC tool. For example, we will use it to check our own hand calculations or vice versa to reduce errors before sending something on to a reviewer.
PTC: Has FDOT integrated Mathcad with any other software in the engineering process? For example, is any data passed into Mathcad, or passed out of Mathcad to another location/into another application?
FDOT: We do have some programs where we use a separate interface that generates a data file that is inputted into a Mathcad analysis program. We are currently looking at programs that will use Mathcad to generate input data files for a general structural finite element analysis (FEA) program then takes the FEA output data and creates an input file for Mathcad so that the engineer can do further, more customized analysis with the FEA results.
PTC: Can you share a Mathcad sheet that you are particularly proud of (elegant, complex, etc.), or share a best practice or tip with the rest of the readers?
FDOT: Our LRFD Box Culvert program is a fairly complex program.
PTC: Thanks for taking the time out to share your Mathcad experiences with us.
Readers, if you get a minute, head on over to FDOT’s Mathcad page. There you will find many useful worksheets. Even if civil engineering isn’t your flavor of Mathcad, you still might get an idea or two on how to set up or use a worksheet.
