<p>No, I know… I was a structural, which is essentially a mech that specializes in concrete and steel. I took fluids with the mechs because of some scheduling issues, though, and we did compressible fluids for about half the time. The basic civ class just did Newtonian fluids.</p>
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<p>I would say that is odd, because isn’t concrete itself a non-Newtonian fluid, but then I realized that you probably would NEVER have a need to simulate a complex fluid flow with concrete as the working fluid. haha.</p>
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<p>LOL… No, how the fresh concrete gets placed is the contractor’s concern, and we don’t tell the contractors how to do their thing. Actually, we try not to <em>think</em> about how the contractors do their thing, let alone analyze it! ;)</p>
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<p>Yeah, contractors can be… shady. That is the word I will use. I am an ME, but I did some Civil work for a summer once, and by do they try and cut every corner they can most of the time. It is ridiculous.</p>
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<p>Well, it’s really an effect of what construction contracting typically is. The way that contracting works is that the contractor pays for the entire project themselves and then the owner pays the contractor for the building when everyone’s satisfied that the job’s been done right. Before the project starts, the contractors vying for the job will all put in bids for how much they can build the project for, and (usually) the one who says they can build it for the least amount of money gets stuck with the project, whether they can actually build it for that much money or not. Any place they can be more economical without sacrificing quality (technically)-- that’s either profit in their pockets, or it’s a little closer to not posting a loss for the project.</p>
<p>It’s a huge, cutthroat balancing act… I don’t blame them for being as aggressive as they are. I wouldn’t want to have to sign my name to the bill for a stadium or skyscraper before I knew exactly how much it was going to cost to build the thing. Too scary for me!</p>
<p>And now, back to your regularly scheduled thread. =)</p>