Eclipse Engineering, Inc: Blog

Flathead Valley Office

jessefortune — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:06:10 +0000

Whitefish, Montana is the home of Eclipse Engineering’s new Flathead Valley office. It has been a goal of Eclipse to have an office to better serve our clients in the area for 10 years. Mr. Jim Henjum, P.E. will be the branch manager. He brings many years of experience and intimate knowledge of the region to our staff. Stop by our new office if you find yourself in the area at 1005 E. Baker Avenue, Suite E, Whitefish!

Revit Structural

jessefortune — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:09:46 +0000

Eclipse has added the Revit Structural Suite to our arsenal. Revit is an industry leader in what is referred to as Building Information Modeling or BIM. BIM has been the ‘buzz’ in the A/E community for the last few years and is the way of the future. Today BIM can offer many benefits including: reduced field conflicts during construction (spacial coordination), improved collaboration and understanding of the design intent, and a great means of presentation to owners.

Other benefits are emerging as the software evolves and the design community buys in to the technology.

Check out this pdf (REVIT ) to see an Eclipse project that is under construction alongside the Revit 3D rendering.

LEED Gold

jessefortune — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:11:46 +0000

Eclipse project in northern Idaho expects LEED Gold:

New USFS Building in Sandpoint to be LEED Certified

Eclipse Engineering Inc. Dives Into Trench Box Certification Evaluations

nickb1eeior — Mon, 17 May 2010 17:28:02 +0000

Working for Eclipse Engineering Inc. over the past four years has allowed me the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects within the Structural specialty of Civil Engineering. The latest such project involved evaluating the Certification-listed maximum pressures for Excavation Protection Equipment, trench boxes, purchased by a road construction company, Johnny Cat, Inc.

OSHA has a set of rules to govern most, if not all, activities that employees of any company might be required to perform. OSHA requires that construction companies either bench/tier the walls of excavations; or use trench boxes to support the walls of narrow excavations for any excavation deeper than 4’-0” below the existing, adjacent grade. OSHA also requires that any trench box being used on a job site have a written certification stating the physical dimensions of the box and the maximum allowable lateral soil pressure that the box is able to support. These certifications are to be stamped and signed by a licensed Professional Engineer.

OSHA has another requirement beyond those listed above, for excavations deeper than 20’-0”. The construction company shall hire a Professional Engineer to either design the bench system for the excavation, or evaluate the maximum pressures allowed by the trench box certifications by comparing them to the actual soil pressures produced by the soils present on the job site. Not being a Geotechnical Engineer myself, I was thankful to be part of the latter option only.

OSHA has three main soil types that they use for evaluating Excavation Benches or Protection Equipment. Soil Type ‘A’ is a very stable soil with a high percentage of clay in its make-up. Soil Type ‘B’ is less stable, but often contains a combination of crushed rock, silt and sand. Soil Type ‘C’ is the least stable type of soil according to OSHA since it is primarily dry sand and gravel. The soil at the project we are involved contains bedrock that was blasted out to expose the desired depth, then loose, dry gravel and sand were backfilled against the trench boxes, leaving us with an OSHA Soil Type ‘C’ situation. In conclusion, the trench boxes that we reviewed are all of a sufficient capacity for their intended depths of use and construction is well under way.

Best Regards,
Nick Burnam, PE

Spring 2010 Newsletter

jessefortune — Fri, 07 May 2010 16:03:29 +0000

The much anticipated, fresh off of the press – The Spring 2010 Newsletter!Spring 2010 Eclipse Engineering Newsletter

New Eclipse Team Member!

jessefortune — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:54:18 +0000

I am very excited to announce the addition of our newest team member at Eclipse Engineering, Inc.: Mr. Kevin Haiar, P.E.. Kevin is a Spokane native and as a Senior Project Manager at Eclipse he will be a tremendous resource to our clients in the Spokane area. Check out a quick resume of his experience.

Bringing Down the House

jessefortune — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:53:15 +0000

As we sit here in our offices designing new structures to resist the forces of mother nature, a building across the street is coming down. With the completion of the new First Interstate Bank office building, the adjacent structure has become obsolete. Do you think operating that piece of machinery is a fun job today?

Vivian Irene Svee

jessefortune — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:30:27 +0000

Congratulations to Marcus and Gretchen (Iman) Svee as they welcome in their new baby girl, Vivian Irene Svee. 20 1/2 inces, 7 lb 4 oz. Reportedly, Vivian Irene was in the office early this morning wrapping up an finite element analysis. Guess she “has the knack”.

Bowling Trophy

eclipseengineering — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:29:27 +0000

Well, we certainly aren’t the type of people to easily let go of something we could otherwise make a spectacle of, so OF COURSE we ordered a bowling trophy for Lynn! Congratulations Lynn!

Company Bowling

jessefortune — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:00:56 +0000

Sometimes it’s intimidating working with such great athletes. The Missoula office congregated for a company bowling extravaganza last week. Lynn Gmeiner took home the most coveted trophy for Low Game…
…not only low game of the night, but low game in the history of bowling. His 51 left those of us who witnessed it amazed at his uncanny in-ability to knock pins down with his bowling ball. Troy Leistiko had the high 3-game series at 360. A few beers and some tasty deep fat fried vittles completed a great outing.