Increase in Continuing Education for Florida PEs Appears Likely

Professional Engineers in Florida may soon see an increase in the number of continuing education hours required for license renewal.

Passed by the state senate and house, legislation S.B. 692/H.B 713 is on its way Governor Rick Scott. The measure will increase the requirement of eight hours to eighteen hours every two years and significantly broaden the options engineers have for obtaining credits. 

The Florida Engineering Society believes that continuing education changes are essential to bringing the state closer to standards set by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. The new continuing education requirements call for the following: 

• Two Hours must be related to the state PE law and professional ethics 
• Four hours must be devoted to the licensee's area of practice.
• Remaining hours can cover various topics related to the practice of engineering. 
• A maximum of four hours can be earned by presenting or attending seminars, in-house courses workshops and professional or technical and conferences. 
• A maximum of four hours may be earned by serving as an officer or actively participating on an FES committee

The bill also provides for new qualifications and procedures for appointing members of the Board of Professional Engineers. 9 out of the 11 board members must be a licensed engineer.   Each of the 9 will be selected based on their qualifications and experience to provide expertise to the board in civil engineering, structural engineering, mechanical engineering, plumbing engineering, fire protection engineering or engineering education. a professional or technical society may recommend potential members of the board. 

Additionally, applicants serving in the US armed forced who are delay in taking the FE or PE exam will be allowed two extra changes to pass either exam before being required to take additional courses or an exam review course. 

Information related to this  bill can be found on the Florida State Senate Website. 

Experience an Urban Intervention in WPB, Florida

April 2014- RGD Consulting Engineers invites you to experience an urban intervention on Saturday April 12 in West Palm Beach.  Organized by The School of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida Atlantic University, "C'est La Via: Rethinking the Alleyways," is an urban design demonstration meant to envision and transform the alleys on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach into usable, livable space.

The brainchild of a master's level course a the School of Urban & Regional Planning, "the project is a form of tactical urban intervention that aims to transform the larger urban context by identifying existing social networks and strengthening them through open communication, engagement in activities and physical connections. 

The lead organizer of the event and instructor at the School of Urban & Regional Planning, Sherryl Muriente, explains that "this type of urbanism serves as a tool for temporarily rebuilding an ignored public space in order to show the potential it has to to permanently become an active and successful place"

During the event's hours of 10 am - 8 pm, visitors will enjoy live music, food, drinks, arts, games and pop up shops.

Contribute to the Movement

This event is being crowdfunded through indiegogo. Join RGD in helping The School of Urban & Regional Planning at FAU meet its goal of $1,000 before Saturday.  Contributors will be recognized as the event in a number of artistic ways. 

Extra funding will be applied to he schools foundation and reserved for another alleyway project next semester.  Make an impact on the City of West Palm,Visit Indiegogo to Contribute to the C'est La Via project. 

Contact Information

Event Coordinator: Sherryl Muriente,  FAU School of Urban and Regional Planning 

Phone: 561-297-4279

Email: sherryl.muriente@fau.edu

The National Design Services Act (NDSA) Could Lesson the Burden of Student Debt for Architecture Graduates

Architecture is one of the disciplines with the highest student loan balances in the country, with the average architecture student graduating with $40,000 in student loan debt.

This staggering debt is why AIA and AIAS have developed legislation that would ease the burden by providing loan assistance to architect students and recent graduates.

The bill titled, "The National Design Services Act" (NDSA), would authorize the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to create a program allowing architecture students to work with Community Design Centers in exchange for assistance with their student loans. This would not only encourage architecture graduates to remain in the profession, but would also allow communities to receive a range of architectural services that they may not have received otherwise.

The bipartisan legislation, H.R. 4205, was introduced last week by Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO)  and co-sponsored by a number of Congressman including Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) and Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL).

NDSA is expected to be a main topic of discussion during the 2014 AIA Grassroots and Legislative and Leadership Conference.

Sign the petition, or show support for NDSA by contacting your congressman and visiting AIA's National Design Services Act Advocacy Tool Kit

Florida Amends Use of Electronic Signatures For Professional Engineers

March 2014 - Changes to electronic signatures under Rule 61G15-23-003, Procedures for Signing and Sealing Electronically Transmitted Plans, Specifications, Reports or Other Documents has recently gone into effect. 

Rule 61G15-23-003 establishes protocol for signing and sealing electronic deliverables through the use of digital signatures and electronic signatures. Last year it was proposed to amend this procedure in order to make the use of electronic signatures truly paperless. 

Previously under Rule 61G15-23-003, procedures required that the licensee create a report with the Engineer's name and PE number, a brief overall description of the engineering documents and the authentication code (secure hash standard) of the signature filed. This document was printed, manually signed and sealed along with the electronic deliverables. While this method was free of cost, it was not entirely a paperless method. 

Under the amended rule, licensees still must create, print, sign, date and seal the paper report, but now can submit a scanned electronic copy with transmitted electronic deliverables.  The licensee is still required to retain the sign, dated and sealed hardcopy in accordance with Rule 61G15-30.009, F.A.C. 

More information can be found in the Board of Professional Engineers Chapter 61G15-18. 

RGD Hosts Clients at 2014 Honda Classic

March 3, 2014--RGD was happy to host several clients behind the lines at this year's Honda Classic at PGA National.   Participating clients had the opportunity to walk behind the lines with several of the tournament's stars including Tiger Woods, Rory McIlory, Lee Westwood and winner Russell Henley.  Thanks for everyone who participated, we look forward to next year! 

The green building fad plays a key role in promoting energy savings, but does it do so at the expense of human health?

In the last 6 years, there has been a significant shift in the U.S. Green Building Council LEED rating system. This shift has been marked by an increased emphasis on energy efficiency over indoor environmental quality (IEQ). This shift was first noted in LEED 2009, with the IEQ Category decreasing from 71.7% (second most) available points to 13.6% (barely third most) points, while the energy category increased from 24.6% to 31.8%. These ratings remain similar in LEED version 4. The only requirements regarding IEQ according to LEED are related to controlling the environmental tobacco smoke and providing the ASHRAE minimum amount of outdoor air.   This is the precedent for many other rating systems as well. 

If your air quality isn't up to par, one of the reasons below could be your culprit. 

Reasons for Poor Indoor Air Quality 

1. Non-Cleanable Interior Ventilation Surfaces 
2. Too Much Outdoor Air 
3. Cellulose Materials In High Water Use Areas
4. Roof Pollutant Sources Near Air Intakes 
5. Construction of Dirt and Debris Left on New Building Ventilation Surfaces 
6. Ventilation Fan Cycling On And Off 
7. Using Hazardous Materials in New Buildings 
8. Building Envelope Issues 
9. Air Handling Units With Poor Access
10. AHU Condensate Lines in Bad Locations or Improperly Installed 
11. Inadequate and Improper Use of Products Identified as Low Emitting 
12. Inappropriate Air Quality Evaluation Parameters and Methods for New Green Building Pre-occupancy 
13. Depending Too Much on Building Flush Out 
14. Filers Not Performing Per Rating Due to AHU Design Or Maintenance/Installation Issues 
15. Installing Drywall Before Roof Or Windows are in Place 
16. Not Designing or Constructing for Radon Mitigation 
17. Exposed Fiberglass Insulation In Return Air Plenum Above Ceiling Tiles 
18. Plumbing Construction Defects 
19. Ventilation Supply and Return Short Circuits
20. Not Negatively Pressurizing Rooms with Pollutants Source 

For More Information: "20 Reasons your Green Building may not have Green Indoor Air." Engineered Systems. January 2014. 

Energy Efficient Containment Systems

A look at a cold-aisle containment systems installed
 by Facebook in one of its Silicon Valley data centers.

An important component of a data center design is the containment system. Containment systems are necessary as they isolate the hot discharge air from the cooler supply air, managing cooling by separating the airflow. This helps reduce hot spots caused by re-circulation from the hot aisle to the cold aisle and maximizes the cooling potential of existing air conditioning.

As  equipment power densities increase, so does the need for the separation between hot and cold areas. First introduced in the 1980s and 90s, containment systems consisted of hot-aisle, cold aisle arrangements due to the standardization of computer server design to a front-to-back airflow arrangement.  This layout has remained the industry standard for data centers since.

The layout consists of placing adjacent rows of equipment cabinets in a front-to-front orientation so that the hot discharge from one row does not blow into into the intake of the adjacent row.  The supply air can be supplied into cold aisles, with return air pulled only from hot aisles.  In this way, mixing can be reduced by delivering cold air and returning hot air in separate locations.

This system did a manageable job minimizing the mixing of hot and cold air with lower power densities of the equipment in the early years of data design, but failed to address the air balancing issues involved with dynamically changing computer loads and continuing server layout changes.

Over the last several years, power demands and cooling loads of IT equipment has increased as more processing power is packed into smaller spaces.   At the same time, increased use of virtualization and cloud based computing has increased the utilization rate and power draw of existing servers.  IT mangers require an effective means of optimizing performance, minimizing new infrastructure and keeping cooling costs down. IT managers require an effective means of optimizing performance, minimizing new infrastructure and keeping cooling costs down.

Containment strategies have adapted to these changes over the years, in order to provide data center engineers and IT managers with a new set of tools to meet the increased challenges that come with designing around high-density applications.  Here are three potential containment systems:

Cold-Aisle Containment

The cold aisles are enclosed within the data center, so that the cold supply air is delivered directly to each cold aisle and can be matched to the server airflow requirements with proper controls.   The physical barrier, which can be solid metal panels, plastic curtains, glass or plexiglass added to the ends and the atop of the cold aisle. A transparent barrier enables the cold aisle to remain visible for monitoring or to work within existing room lighting.

Advantages:  Used with raised floor supply plenums or overhead ducted supply with no raised floor. It also may offer efficiency advantages by providing greater ability to control supply air to match server airflow.

Disadvantages:  Allows the discharge air from the hot aisle to fill room, which causes the temperatures to increase throughout the majority of the data center.

Hot Aisle Containment

This involves enclosing the hot aisles within the data center. The discharge from the IT equipment enters the enclosed hot aisle and is returned directly to the cooling equipment through a ceiling plenum or ductwork. The cool supply air is introduced into the room through a raised floor, directly into the general space from the AC units or through ductwork.

Advantage: General data center remains cool.

Disadvantages:  Access to the equipment and its infrastructure can make it an extremely hot and uncomfortable place to work.

Chimney Containment

This system can be provided as an integral part of the IT cabinet system or by third-party manufacturers. This form of containment consists of a solid metal chimney, which extends from the rear of the cabinet up to the ceiling return air plenum.   Chimneys can be installed on individual cabinets or as system, which spans several cabinets.  Fans within chimneys can be provided, which assist in airflow and help minimize pressure buildup at the rear or any high density cabinets.

Advantages:  Eliminate hot air from all occupied spaces so that the entire room remains cool. It is also more flexible, as chimney cabinets can be added and moved and reconfigured easily.

Disadvantages:  Due to the chimney's small cross sectional area and total cabinet airflows through servers and causing massive internal cabinet re-circulation if the cabinets do not have the proper separation between the front and back.