Who Should Be Responsible for Structural Steel Design?

Abstract

At the October 1985 Board of Direction meeting in Detroit the report prepared by the ASCE Task Committee on Design Responsibility was adopted as official ASCE policy. The report recommended that (1) The Engineer of Record (EOR) should be responsible for the integrity of the structural design; and (2) the EOR should either design the connections or review and approve (for structural adequacy) the connections selected by the fabricator. Changes in technology and society as a whole which started in the 1960's had an adverse effect on the past practices for steel construction. This topic is of national interest because of an increase in structural failures in recent years and a trend toward assigning some of the design responsibility to the fabricator. Judge Deutsch's ruling concerning the role of the EOR and the fabricator on the Hyatt skywalk collapse further intensified interest in this subject. Hopefully, the recommendations presented in the ASCE report will reverse the practice of divided responsibility for the design of steel structures and provide guidance for the steel construction industry.