Customer Reviews

Reinforced Masonry Engineering Handbook: Clay and Concrete Masonry, Fifth Edition

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book provides a comprehensive explanation detailing the design standards used in masonry. This book is a must have reference guide for those who are in the field of Civil Engineering or design of masonry walls. No C.E. should be without one. It provides a necessary reference just like the AISC Steel Structural Book or any other design code books.

The fatal problem is this book is NOT current to the 97 Uniform Building Code, contrary to the advertised description. It is written for the 94 Code. Therefore, it is useless and dangerous for actual design and permit. This book gives a pretty good tutorial, but asumes the reader to be an engineer already and skips key explanations of the process, showing numbers in formulas without referencing where they came from, what they mean, or what units they are measured in. Too cryptic. The reference data is scattered throughout the book, and often doesn't have a cross-reference, so it took me over an hour to read each page of problem, due to hunt-and-peck for clues. The design examples are fairly good but hard to follow, and the problem questions don't have answers or process to check your work. The subject is so complex that it would be scary to formulate a real life problem. The author left out the seismic factors on foundation design, so the answers are very wrong in earthquake areas. The 97 Code changed greatly from the 94 Code, so you will be struggling to learn erroneous information.

This book has long been in my wishing list. As many others here, I hope a new version that agree with the latest codes could come up. However, I finally decided to buy it. They sent the book quickly and immaculately new. I like it.

Despite the fact that this book was published in 1998 and is based on the 1994 UBC, it is still the best book on masonry design out there for the practicing engineer. As another reviewer notes, it's useless as far as the actual design is ccncerned and it does assume you know a good bit about what you are doing already, but I am at a lost to find a better book for my newbies.

I give it 1 star for having a 5000:1 text to picture ratio... but 10 stars for helping us determine that a tornado can not flip an M1 Abrams tank.