Assist with developing timely responses (generally same business day) to technical support questions for design-oriented bridge finite element analysis software and deep foundation analysis software maintained by the Bridge Software Institute (BSI). Populate technical engineering responses to end-user questions, coordinate responses with licensing personnel, hold screenshare sessions to help end-users navigate the interface and/or resolve technical challenges, and ensure that any feature requests or potential software bugs are reported to senior programmers/engineers.
Assist with formulating, executing, and documenting verification cases for bridge finite element analysis software and deep foundation analysis software. Utilize one or more of manual calculation methods, design-oriented analysis software, and/or general-purpose finite element analysis software for a given verification case. Identify and document comparisons of pertinent analysis output to substantiate each verification case. Coordinate with senior engineers to populate and maintain internal and published verification reports.
Enhance and maintain internal software applications that performs verification tasks on a BSI software packages for bridge finite element analysis as part of continuous integration, including just prior to official software releases. Coordinate with BSI engineers to prioritize which verification models are to be added to the verification model repository of the application. Integrate model files supplied by end-users and BSI engineers into the verification suite. Add/modify the feature set of the internal verification tool based on input from BSI engineers. Ensure that verification tasks are organized in the BSI queuing system and completed in a timely manner.
Participate in research and development activities within BSI related to nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA), soil-structure interaction, and other topics within the scope of the institute. Assist with numerical studies using software such as LPILE, APILE, GROUP, ADINA, and LS-DYNA. Contribute to technical reports, conference papers, journal publications, and sponsored research projects. Coordinate with faculty, research staff, industry partners, and graduate students as needed to support research objectives.
Assist with enhancing and maintaining C# and XSL-based application that renders results obtained from bridge finite element analysis into formatted HTML reports. Participate in implementation of XML-to-XSL string processing and rendered-HTML report formatting when new entries are added to the XML schema. Coordinate with engineers to document tasks that relate to enhancement of the report-generator user interface (UI). Perform coding tasks assigned by senior programmers and managed through the BSI queuing system.
Perform other duties as assigned in support of BSI operations, including coordination of newsletters and technical publications, creation and testing of software installation packages, maintenance of user documentation in web and PDF formats through FLARE, website support, and software quality assurance activities.