For civil & structural engineers
Learning, professional development, engineering discussion and practical tools.
Queensferry has two parts. The Chartership Forum is where engineers learn, work towards professional qualification and talk to each other. The Lab is where they use, test and help improve engineering tools.
Learning
Courses in civil engineering
8 courses are available. Each is a sequence of lessons with worked examples, interactive tools and question banks, and each states what it covers and what it does not.
Every number is recomputed
No figure in a lesson is typed in. Each is calculated by a tested library and checked against the prose, so a worked example cannot quietly disagree with the text around it.
Diagrams come from the same calculation
A bending-moment diagram is drawn from a real solve of that beam. Wrong-answer diagrams apply a named distortion to the correct curve, so each is wrong for a stated structural reason.
Code values carry their clause
Where a course uses a Eurocode parameter it records the document, the clause and the date it was read. A value that cannot be traced is marked as such.
Some of the courses
All 8 courses- 01Structural Analysis FundamentalsLoad paths and equilibrium, shear and bending moment diagrams, trusses, stress and strain, deflection and buckling — with interactive diagrams and worked examples throughout.Structural Engineering
- 02Structural BehaviourWork out how a structure will move, where the load goes and what the diagrams look like before you calculate anything. Every module asks you to predict first, then checks your answer against the working.Structural Engineering
- 03Computational EngineeringUsing computation to design, analyse and improve structures responsibly: what to model and what to leave out, which method fits the question, how to check the output, and where automation should stop.Structural Engineering
- 04Soil MechanicsHow soil, water and loading interact: description and classification, phase relationships, water flow, effective stress, consolidation, shear strength and an introduction to critical state.Geotechnical Engineering
Professional qualification
The route to chartered status
Registration takes years. It runs from a first degree, through the experience that counts towards it, to a written submission and a professional review. Queensferry covers three parts of it: the engineering, the evidence, and discussion with other engineers going through the same thing.
- 01
Get your bearings
An afternoon
- 02
Settle your educational base
Weeks to months — start it first
- 03
Complete your IPD
Years, and it runs alongside everything else
- 04
Build your evidence
Ongoing — and the earlier you start, the less you forget
- 05
Write and submit
Four to six months
- 06
Prepare for the review
Two to three months before the date
- 07
Your result
Up to six weeks after the review
ICE Professional Qualification
Practical help using your own project work as evidence, writing the submission, and getting ready for Professional Review.
IStructE Professional Qualification
Guidance on Initial Professional Development, the Core Objectives, building a portfolio, the Professional Review Interview and the membership examinations.
Queensferry is not affiliated with either institution and does not award professional qualifications. Always check current requirements with your own institution.
Community
Technical discussion between engineers
Ask technical questions and discuss engineering with other engineers, in communities grouped by subject and by professional development.
- Ask a technical question and answer other people's
- Join the communities for the subjects you work in
- Discuss a course, a lesson or a worked example
- Talk through evidence and professional review
The Lab
Engineering tools, built in the open
Used, tested and improved by the engineers who rely on them.
The Lab is where Queensferry builds software for engineering work. Every tool states what it does, what has been checked against a known answer, and what has not — so you can judge how far to trust it before you use it, rather than afterwards.
Tools are released while they are still being worked on. You can use them, run your own models through them, and say where they are wrong or awkward. That feedback is the point of the Lab, and it is why registration exists: so a report can be followed up with the person who made it.
Geometry, supports and the applied load.
In numbers
What is on Queensferry
Counted from the site’s own registries rather than typed into this page, so they cannot quietly go out of date.
All of it is free to read. An account is needed only to post in discussions or to take part in testing, so that contributions can be attributed and followed up.
- 8
- courses, each a sequence of lessons with worked examples and question banks
- 2
- engineering disciplines within civil engineering: structural and geotechnical
- 74
- pages of guidance on professional qualification, from first degree through to review
- 20
- interactive tools inside that guidance
- 27
- attribute statements the guidance works through, with 14 chartered extensions
- 6
- stages in the ATLAS workflow, from model through to understanding