Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
Paper format. National Examinations, December 2014 — 07-Str-A2 Elementary Structural Design, 3-hour duration, closed book (handbooks and textbooks permitted). Seven questions in three parts: Part A (A1–A3, steel, CSA S16), Part B (B1–B3, reinforced concrete, CSA A23.3) and Part C (C1, timber, CSA O86). A candidate answers two from Part A, two from Part B and the one question in Part C — five solutions in total, all of equal value. All seven are solved here so the set works as a complete study resource.
Reference texts. CSA S16, Design of Steel Structures, with the CISC Handbook of Steel Construction; CSA A23.3, Design of Concrete Structures, with the CAC Concrete Design Handbook; CSA O86, Engineering Design in Wood, with the CWC Wood Design Manual; National Building Code of Canada (load combinations); Kulak & Grondin, Limit States Design in Structural Steel; MacGregor & Bartlett, Reinforced Concrete: Mechanics and Design.
Check — load factors. Note 6 on page 1 states “All loads shown are unfactored, unless otherwise specified”, but the paper never splits the figure loads into dead and live components. Throughout Parts A and B the applied figure loads are therefore treated as live load, factored by 1.5, and self-weight of concrete members as dead load, factored by 1.25 (NBCC 4.1.3.2, combination 1.25D + 1.5L). In Part C the paper does name the components, so 1.25D + 1.5S is used directly. If an examiner intended a different split the method is unchanged — only the numerical factor moves.
Check — figure dimensions. Every figure on this paper is a hand sketch on page 3 whose OCR text is unusable; all geometry below was read from the printed figure of the original PDF. Figure A1 is not drawn to scale horizontally (its printed 600 and 300 dimensions are authoritative, not the drawn proportions). In Figure B1 the dimension “1 m × 1 m” runs from the section centreline to the outer face, so each cell is 1 m square and the box is 2000 mm wide × 1000 mm deep; the “600 × 600” dimension line brackets the void, giving 200 mm walls and a 400 mm central web. That reading is confirmed independently by the “65 typical” cover note: 65 + 65 cover plus two 15M tie legs plus one 30M bar needs exactly 200 mm of wall.
