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Top Level Engineering Celebrates EWeek

Top Level Engineering Celebrates E-Week

By pwsadmin | February 25, 2022

The team at Top Level Engineering (TLE) visited two fourth-grade classes at Cedar Lane Elementary School in Ashburn, Virginia February 25 in honor of Engineers Week (EWeek). Founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers, EWeek is a week-long celebration of how engineers make a difference in our world and an effort to raise awareness…

Top Level Engineering

ASCE 7-22 Design Standard Enhances Public Safety

By pwsadmin | February 16, 2022

At Top Level Engineering, we design buildings to not only meet current engineering standards, but also to meet best practices. In December, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released changes to the ASCE 7 standard, which is regarded as the authoritative source for the specification of loads and related criteria, and it has been…

Haiti Earthquake

More Than Compliance: Engineering for Safety

By pwsadmin | January 25, 2022

Earlier this month, we wrote about What Disasters Teach Us About the Importance of Design Codes. the role that our own founder and principal Kirby Hartle played during the devastating 2010 Haiti Earthquake when he served as a Structures Specialist with the Urban Search and Rescue Virginia Task Force 1. For the two weeks Kirby…

Haiti Earthquake

What Disasters Teach Us About the Importance of Design Codes

By pwsadmin | January 10, 2022

Here in the United States, designing buildings to meet international, national, state, and local codes is simply part of the structural engineering process. It’s required by law and expected by customers. It isn’t until natural or manmade disasters strike that we truly gain an appreciation for building and design standards, why these codes are required,…

Looking Ahead to Great Opportunities

By pwsadmin | January 3, 2022

Top Level Engineering: Celebrating a Successful 2021, Looking Ahead to Great Opportunities in the Future Happy New Year from Top Level Engineering! As we move into the first few weeks of 2022, we look back on the previous year with a grateful spirit – as we have much to celebrate! First and foremost, we are…

IBC

ICC Makes Significant Changes to 2021 IBC Codes

By pwsadmin | December 15, 2021

The International Code Council (ICC) recently announced significant changes to the 2021 International Building Codes (IBC), according to Part 1 of a recent five-article series in the November 2021 issue “Structure” magazine. Structural engineers should be aware of these significant changes that occurred between 2018 and 2021. In their article 2021 IBC Significant Structural Changes,…

Goddard School of Ashburn Annex

By pwsadmin | November 19, 2021

Top Level Engineering Provides Structural Engineering For Goddard School of Ashburn Annex Top Level Engineering worked with Loveless Porter Architects in 2020 and 2021 to provide the structural design for an addition to The Goddard School, located in Ashburn, Virginia. Once completed, The Goddard School of Ashburn Annex will be a 5,000 square foot, two-story…

Engineering Solutions

Approximate Analytical Techniques

By pwsadmin | November 5, 2021

Approximate Analytical Techniques Why Mastering Them is So Important for Structural Engineers When analyzing and designing indeterminate structures today, most structural engineers are able to rely upon a variety of software programs to help them do the job quickly and precisely. However, possessing the ability to approximate an answer without the use of a computer…

Georgia Passes PE., SE Practice Act

By pwsadmin | October 21, 2021

On August 4 of last year, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed a bill recognizing Structural Engineering as an addition to the current Professional Engineering license for specifically designated structures, as noted in a recent article in the September 2021 issue of Structure magazine.   In the process, SB 310 created a new license: Professional…

Top Level Engineering Designs Concession and Restroom Facilities at Loudoun County Park

By pwsadmin | October 8, 2021

At Top Level Engineering, being involved in the design of a community improvement project is always exciting. However, when that community is Loudoun County, Virginia – where our company is headquartered and many of our employees live – the experience is extra special. This was certainly the case in July 2019, when TLE partnered with…