It is dawn in Paris. The June morning air is damp, quiet and cool. Three blocks from the Arc de Triomphe I have just risen from my bed at the foyer and, opening my shutters wide, look out onto the little garden courtyard below and the Parisian sky, already bright blue, above.

Within the hour I have showered and breakfasted and am heading down rue Washington toward my metro station, George V. The winding street, lined with small shops, is filled at this hour with the scent of freshly baked breads and pastries and the distinct sounds of coffee beans being ground in the espresso machines and cups and silverware being readied.

Abruptly the narrow sidewalk I have been treading opens out onto the vast expanse of the Champs Elysees, where the street cleaning machines have preceded me at dawn and the sidewalks and boulevard now stand immaculate and gleaming. In the distance to my left, I can see the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde and two blocks to my right the Arc de Triomphe stands huge and gray in the morning light. The Parisian work force is just stirring and its earliest risers are now stepping out onto the almost barren sidewalk. I join them and head for the stairs descending to the metro station. Forty minutes away, among the tree-lined streets of the 12th arrondissement waits my chantier, the site of my summer civil engineering internship.

On that first day of my internship, June 2, l997, I had no idea of the rich and complex experiences that lay ahead of me, but I was sharply aware of the complications involved in obtaining the position. In fact, I had been in pursuit of an internship in a French civil engineering firm for two years. As an engineering student who had taken out a year between high school graduation and matriculation at Duke to be a foreign exchange student in France for a year, I had a long term goal of working internationally as a civil engineer for either an American or a French firm. The pleasures and challenges of cultural diversity appeal to me and, since my year as an exchange student, I was particularly intrigued by the differences between the French and American cultures and business practices. I had a feeling that I might profit greatly by internships in both systems. I recognized that the French civil engineer might face somewhat different problems than his American counterpart and I was eager to learn more about these challenges. My eagerness to be an intern in France, however, met with real disappointment the first year that I pursued a position. Despite following every lead I could think of that first year, in May I had only a pile of polite regrets on my desk to show for it. At that late date I considered myself lucky to land a position with the Engineering Department of the North Carolina Department of Transportation scrambling up and down the banks of rural roadways surveying and staking out roads scheduled for paving.

With 13% unemployment in France and a tradition of only accepting as interns French students who have completed their undergraduate work, it is not easy for a foreigner to obtain an internship. To a far greater extent than is true here in America, a personal introduction to a firm is imperative in France. The bright side of this problem, however, is that help may come from an unexpected source. In the end it was a banker, a friend of my host family's who dealt with construction companies, who was kind enough to recommend me and pass on my résumé to several engineering firms. Though I was fortunate to have this connection through my experience as an exchange student, it is quite possible that similar connections could be established through Duke alumni working in Paris, if their positions put them in touch, however obliquely, with engineering firms.

With the offer of an internship position finally in hand, there were still myriad details that presented themselves. Without the help of the International Honors Program and its director, Dr. Miguel Medina, and Duke's French Department, particularly Mme. Elisabeth Fisher, these details might have become insurmountable problems. Though no work permit was needed for my internship in France, I could not be accepted without a contract being drawn up between Duke and the French company. This Convention de Stage included agreements concerning the responsibilities that Duke University undertook concerning supervision of my educational goals, a clarification of insurance liability, expectations on the job, wages, and other particulars. Dr. Medina and the IHP provided both financial and moral support as I made travel and housing arrangements, as well, and followed up by keeping in contact with me by telephone after I arrived in France. Mme. Fisher, my French for Business professor at Duke, for months graciously proof-read my letters and faxes to France and her department was able to give me the list of possibilities for student housing in Paris which allowed me to make reservations at the foyer.

Once in Paris I had to open a checking account with a French bank in order to provide my new employer with the required relevé d'identité bancaire which allows for automatic deposit of wages. Then, with my Carte Orange (the Paris, multi-use, discount metro/bus ticket), my International Student Identity Card (obtained at the Duke Registrar's Office), and my American check card (Visa) in hand, I was at last ready for my internship.

My new employer was BATEG, one of the largest construction companies in France. The firm is made up of approximately four hundred workers from the chief executive to the workers on site. BATEG is a branch of Compagnie Générale de Batiment et de Construction, which is in turn a part of la Compagnie Générale des Eaux, the largest service company in the world. The specific role of BATEG is to first obtain a site by bidding competitively on it, and then, with its own troop of workers, build the superstructure of the building in concrete, to subcontract the remainder of the work to be done on the building, and then follow the construction of all of the subcontractors until the building is given to the client. BATEG is considered to be an entreprise générale because it assumes the responsibility of a job well done from the first slab of concrete to the last touch of paint. The firm follows through on its sites with a guarantee that lasts for ten years after the completion of the building.

BATEG's list of completed works in Paris is impressive. It includes the Galerie Commerciale dans le Carrousel du Louvre (the underground shopping complex at the Louvre Museum, including the underground, upside-down pyramid which mirrors the I.M.Pei pyramid above ground), the Cité de la Musique, Washington Plaza, and the twin skyscrapers of the Société Générale (a major French bank) and the CNIT at la Defense. BATEG has been responsible for constructing some of the most massive and difficult projects at la Defense, many of which are skyscrapers. At the same time BATEG has a reputation for being able to restore or work within historical facades, maintaining their historical integrity while incorporating modern technology. One of the great challenges that face French engineers is the dual need to progress and advance technologically while still respecting the heritage of an area and the style of the buildings surrounding the one being constructed, and BATEG takes pride in its reputation in this area.

I was assigned to work with M. Thierry Raynaud, the civil engineer in charge of the site Netter/Chevreuil in the 12th arrondissement. The nature of my internship continually changed throughout the two months that I was working for BATEG. Although I already had a good basis in French following my year abroad and several courses at Duke, I still had a tremendous amount of technical French to learn -- from terms dealing with steel reinforcement, scaffolding and sheet rock to those dealing with computer technology. Nearly my entire first week was spent reading detailed architects' descriptions of what we were building, then understanding the process and mastering the technical terms. My greatest ally in this learning process was the Portuguese chef du chantier, M. Ernesto Dominguez, the on-site supervisor. Though not an engineer, he had supervised BATEG's work at the Louvre Museum and at la Defense and was highly knowledgeable about all phases of construction. He took it upon himself to treat me as if I were his daughter, making sure that I understood all aspects of work at the site, and, yet, later, after I developed the necessary skills, he was pleased to leave me with the responsibilities of the on-site engineer.

At this site, BATEG was building in reinforced concrete four buildings of forty three apartments and a fifth building with forty seven students' quarters. The site was in a chic, well-developed area with little room left for further construction. The future entrance to the parking of the apartment buildings was a pre-existing, tall, arched passageway between a traditional boulangerie and an auto-école. Often as I entered in the morning the smell of freshly baked croissants and pain au chocolat would follow me into the site. The voices of the children enrolled the middle school behind our building would float up to me in my office on the second floor. There was a wonderful "small village" feeling to the site, but problems were posed as well. The solving of these problems was one of the most interesting aspects of my internship.

When I first arrived on site the skeletons of two buildings were nearly complete (concrete work and roofing finished), the remaining two apartment buildings were completed up to the third floor (with several weeks worth of concrete work left), and the fifth building, the students' quarters, had not yet been begun. I had the distinct advantage of being able to see all of the stages of work in progress -- from the bulldozing to the finishing of the tiles in the bathrooms.

As June advanced and the superstructures of the buildings were nearing completion, the sub-contractors began to come on site to do their work. Since BATEG was responsible for the quality of all the work on the site, not simply the concrete work, the job of the on-site engineer changed. While continuing to follow the work done on the gros oeuvres (concrete work), M. Raynaud and I, as his assistant, were now responsible for scheduling and juggling the work of the many sub-contractors and paying acute attention to each detail of the work that they did. Many meetings. Many crises. Many faxes. By the end of June, M. Raynaud sometimes allowed me to conduct the meetings between the architect, the clients, and the sub-contractors by myself. Finally M. Raynaud announced that he would be taking a three week vacation in July and that I would be taking on the job of the chief engineer on site. The responsibility of being accountable for the advancement of the site required me to become quite familiar with all the minute details of the work of each sub-contractor.

It was fascinating to observe some of the variations between construction in France and that in the United States. Some are the result of the different cultures and the differing regulations in the two countries. One of the most obvious is that where Americans often favor the use of steel in the construction of large structures, the French prefer concrete, a material they feel is more stable, less expensive, and easier to put into place. Fiberglass insulation and sheet rock are rarely used, obviously, in the construction of concrete walls. Instead a doublage is employed -- one solid sheet made of a compacted styrofoam and already attached to sheet rock, which is then literally glued to the concrete walls. Also, contrary to the majority of American apartments, all French residences in Paris are required to have shutters in order to be insurable. In a high quality complex such as the one BATEG was building the shutters were electrically operated. This required new engineering techniques and constant communication between the electrician, the sub-contractors who put the sheet rock in place, those who installed the windows, and those responsible for applying the stucco facades to the buildings.

The French also traditionally take great pride and pleasure in their gardens and treasure the ability to be able to eat outside during the balmy days of summer. As a result, despite the extremely limited amount of space on our site, balconies complete with dirt and landscaping (including trees and shrubs) were drawn into the plans for most of the apartments. Need-less-to-say, the completion of these balconies required a complicated juggling act between the sub-contractors who did the concrete work, the waterproofing, the facades and the landscaping.

The engineers and workers at BATEG put into place the plans that are created by a separate company, the Bureau d'Etude, the office where engineers calculate and design the plans for all the reinforcement, provisions for electricity, plumbing and other adjustments that must be made to the concrete superstructure as it is being created. Great attention has to be paid to each detail of the plans on site and constant communication is established between the Bureau d'Etude and the engineers on site.

During my internship I was often in contact with the Bureau d'Etude in reference to problems that were presented, problems that usually represented differences between theory and reality.

The specific site of the students' building was located between two existing buildings which were built near the beginning of the century. As we began the bulldozing we discovered several complications -- uneven foundations that jutted out onto our site and that were reliant on the existing dirt that we were moving in order to remain stable. Through communication with the Bureau d'Etude we braced the wall in such a manner as to reproduce the pressure of the dirt, then used a saw and jackhammer to even up the foundation, and then used a special system with the concrete forms to put prefabricated walls (which our workers made on site) into place against the existing wall, bonding the two together with concrete.

Engineering challenges continued as the building for the students' quarters advanced. As our site was in the middle of an old section of Paris, with just enough room for the buildings and gardens foreseen by the architect, there were no open lawns or other spaces such as we are accustomed to working near in America. As a result of the cramped quarters no room was left for deliveries of materials once construction began on the students' building. Paris regulations do not allow trucks to deliver on the streets in congested areas and there is always the need, in any case, for an area to store building materials. Due to these complications, the on-site engineer, on-site supervisor and Bureau d'Etude engineers decided to build the entire students' building up to the fifth story leaving one third of the ground floor and first floor undone (despite the fact that all of the second, third, fourth, and fifth floors would be completed above) in order to allow a passage for the trucks to deliver on site. Naturally, the weight of the upper floors had to be taken into consideration as well as the problems posed to the foundation and the neighboring buildings. Through cooperation between the Bureau d'Etude and our team we were able to put into place steel beams to support the weight and plan a means of putting the walls into place by pouring "suspended walls" once the building was finished and the gigantic crane used for handling the concrete forms had been removed.

In addition to being on site I had the opportunity to work at the Bureau d'Etude with the civil engineers there, which was one of the most fascinating parts of my internship. I had the opportunity to see first hand how bending moments and pressure points (which I had studied at Duke) affected the decisions made on materials, cross-sections, and placement of beams, columns, and re-rod reinforcement on plans that then became reality. Although the French make minimal use of computers (e-mail is an unknown!), computer software is an important part of the decision making in the employment of steel beams. All plans, however, are usually drafted by hand.

My internship also included several days at BATEG's headquarters, where I worked with the engineers responsible for the bids (décomposition de prix). The job of these engineers is a delicate balance between competitive pricing and yet attempting to create a bid realistic enough to allow BATEG enough money to do high-quality work and hire high-quality sub-contractors and also earn money for the company at the same time. The engineers who work on these bids are required to work at quite a rapid pace (utilizing computers!) and yet must be careful not to overlook any of the details. At times they are required to have a profound knowledge of construction and the engineering principles that are behind it -- often using their foresight to set prices for details overlooked by inexperienced architects or inattentive workers at the Bureau d'Etude. The nature of their work required that they have a wide basis of knowledge in all areas and did not give them the liberty to specialize in one particular aspect of construction.

It was fascinating to be given the opportunity to work with the on-site engineer, the engineers in the Bureau d'Etude and those in BATEG who are deciding the décomposition de prix. I grew to understand not only the theory behind the plans, but also each person's point of view. Despite the fact that all these workers were civil engineers, each individual was required by his job to react quite differently to specific situations. The engineer who makes the bid to get the job for the on-site engineer may have difficulties explaining to him why he has so little money with which to work. The engineer who makes the bids, however, has the satisfaction of seeing his work swiftly take form and never has to deal with the daily frustrations that face the on-site engineer if he is dealing with unreliable or difficult sub-contractors. Likewise, the engineers in the Bureau d'Etude have the satisfaction of meeting daily challenges in both theory and practice, without the difficulties of dealing with the sub-contractors and the public. For some on-site engineers, however, the satisfaction of being able to point to a specific building and say, "I built that!" may more than compensate for the dirt and difficulties of on-site work. As an aspiring engineer it was an invaluable experience for me to become acquainted with several areas of work that are available to structural engineers. The summer's internship helped to decide my plans for next summer and my long range plans in engineering.

My internship proved, as well, to be a fascinating opportunity to see how a twenty year old woman would be accepted in what has generally been considered a man's domain in France. France has a distinctly smaller number of women who go into engineering -- particularly civil engineering. There are no female engineers at either BATEG or its parent company, Compagnie Générale de Batiment et de Construction. In all of the grandparent company, Compagnie Générale des Eaux, there are only two or three women engineers, and it was not made clear whether or not they are civil engineers. I had the pleasant surprise of being quite well received, however, both throughout BATEG's organization and at the Bureau d'Etude. In fact, I was given, perhaps, more respect and responsibility than I had any right to expect -- not as a woman but simply as an undergraduate intern -- I suspect more than I would have received at an equivalent company in the United States. I was treated with kindness and courtesy throughout my internship, by the workers on the site as well as the executives of the company. When I would answer the phone in my office on site with the traditional "Allo...oui?" the response would often be a hesitant reaction to the feminine voice. "Bonjour. Je suis bien chez BATEG? Sur le chantier Netter/Chevreuil?" ("Good day. Is this really BATEG? At the Netter/Chevreuil site?") Once I assured them that they had reached the correct site there seemed to be no further problems. Perhaps I have the novelty of my internship to thank for it, but, all in all, I was able to obtain good results for the company. In the end, the most important factor in my working relationships seemed to be my interest in and appreciation for my surroundings rather than my gender or age. Looking back, I feel only gratitude to all those involved in helping me to obtain this summer internship in Paris and to all those people with whom I worked, who made it such a success. It was an extraordinary experience and a remarkable learning opportunity.

At six thirty a.m. the sun has slipped high enough into the sky over France to filter through the shutters and cast slivers of light onto my bedroom floor. The neighbor’s cat meows to be let in for morning milk. A car moves down the street beyond the garden wall. The inhabitants of Paris are beginning to stir.

Within an hour I am headed down the rue du Chateau, passing the epiceries where fresh fruits and vegetables are being laid out for the day, by the boulangerie where people are standing in line waiting for their baguettes and croissants, to the station at Asnieres-sur-Seine where the train will carry its passengers to the center of Paris. The morning has begun. Among the Parisians setting off to work, I wind my way through the Metro and the RER, finally arriving at Isssy les Moulineaux, just southeast of Paris. After a short walk beneath the Sycamore trees bordering the avenue de Verdun, I arrive at the design office of the French engineering firm Societe Auxiliare d’Entreprise Structures, where I did my internship this past June and July.

Thanks to the Duke Engineering School’s International Honors Program , this summer I returned once more to Paris, France, to work for a civil engineering firm. Last year my internship had taken place on a site in the twelfth arrrondissement of Paris with the French construction firm, BATEG. This year I was eager to gain exposure to the French methods of construction on a more theoretical level.

I was extraordinarily lucky to be given the opportunity to be an intern in the design department of SAE Structures.

When I initially entered the office on June first, I had no idea shat lay before me or how I would be received. Before my arrival it had been made clear to me by friends from last year’s internship, that the SAE as the “leader of reinforced concrete building construction” in France, and one of the most highly respected firms in the business. I was particularly eager to learn more about the designs they employed in building sites, which comprise 77% of their projects. The office deals with a wide range of building projects, including skyscrapers forty stories high, vast sport, apartment or business complexes, and the more basic plans for schools, dormitories, hotels, public housing and private homes. In addition, SAE is sometimes asked to renovate historically important buildings, complete the structural aspects of environmental projects such as water basins for water treatment plants, design subterranean elements such as tunnels, design bridges for the Metro, the new lines of the Train a Grande Vitesse (the high speed train) or highway systems, or to design various types of both sub- and super-terranean parking lots, which are in great demand in growing and crowded areas such as the center of Paris. The Bureau d’Etude (design office) of the SAE is responsible for completing the majority of the plans required for these projects not only in the eighty branches of the SAE throughout France, but also for foreign firms in China, Indonesia, Thiland, the Philippines, the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. Needless to say, this office of thirteen engineers and fourteen draftsmen is kept quite busy!

Despite the non-stop pace created by the overwhelming number of plans assigned to each engineer and their additional responsibilities of having to follow up on projects with visits to sites as far away as Bordeaux and Clermont Ferront, the engineers received me warmly. I could not have asked for more kindness and consideration. They treated me with the utmost respect and gave me a fair amount of responsibility as well, asking me to complete calculations for a variety of basic elements on different projects, while explaining in detail any problems I encountered. It was a great deal thanks to Monsieur Bernard Potier, who took me under his responsibility from day one, that I was able to quickly adapt and become useful in the office.

Doing an internship in a foreign country can present several obstacles. Obviously, one must have a relatively good working knowledge of the foreign language of the country in which you are working. Thanks to my background as an exchange student for a year in France, as well as courses at Duke University everyday French did not pose too great of a problem. In addition, I had learned a good deal of French engineering terms during my internship on-site last summer. When new, more technical terms, such as “bending moment” or “live load” came up, Mr. Potier would translate them for me into English with a wonderful French accent. Due to the large number of international projects the SAE completes, all of the engineers have to be familiar with technical English terms, as well as their own. A more difficult challenge for me was adapting to a different system of units. America is one of the few countries which still employs feet, pounds, and inches as a measurement standard and one feels somewhat ridiculous explaining our system to the French, where “inch” translates to “puce” (thumb) and, of course, “feet” to “pied”! Due to this difference in units the size of foreign materials actually changes from our own, not only in name, but in use. In turn, the methods of calculation change as well, so I had many unfamiliar equations to learn. On top of all of this, the French “constructions firms” are organized in a different manner than those in the United States. Needless to say, I had a great deal to learn in order to work effectively in this foreign system.

It is necessary initially to understand the French system of organization in order to understand how the French developed their engineering methods. What is an “entreprise” and what are the ramifications of this system on actual design? With time, the system within which a French design department works, has grown more and more different from that in the United States. In the United States, a construction form usually contracts a consulting firm, which is then responsible for the structural design of the building. The American consulting firm calculates the safest design of each element of the structure and gives the finished plans to the construction firm to execute. The consulting firm is usually a different entity than the construction company and is legally responsible for the stability of the structure. As a result, the primary goal of the consulting engineer is to reinforce a structure sufficiently to ensure its stability. If time is of the essence, he many over-reinforce it in an effort to complete the calculations as quickly as possible and still ensure stability. The American construction company then is responsible in turn for building the project according to the plans presented to it. It does not concern itself with actual design or with considering possible modifications that may be made to reduce cost.

While the construction business in France operated in this same manner in the 1960’s, it has since evolved. Presently the majority of French construction companies are considered an entreprise meaning that they are responsible for entire projects from conception to completion. This entreprise takes the architectural plans and, on the basis of what that layout is, proceeds to design a stable structure and then build it. The entreprise is not only responsible for the project from beginning to end, but also for maintenance of the structure up to ten years following the delivery of the project. A French construction firm, then, is not only made of a design department similar to a traditional American consulting firm, but also includes the construction crew and the on-site engineers which are required to build the structure. As a result, the design department cannot only concentrate on the stability of the structure, but must continually work with both the architects and the people on site searching for the most feasible and economical options.

This method of organization, with its emphasis on both legal and economic responsibility, governs the French engineer’s design. Often attention to the smallest details of design can reduce the amount of material required in a project from that foreseen in the original bid on the project. Reducing the cost of materials, of course, increases the profits for the company as a whole. It is no longer the goal to over-design and over-reinforce in order to save time and increase confidence in questionable work done on site. The construction workers and on-site engineer work closely with the designing engineer throughout progress on the structure, and great attention is given to small details of the work on site. As work progresses, the French engineer in the design office is required to continually refine the design of each part of the structure in order to most efficiently make use of materials. At time this may require the engineer to spend several hours in calculating a solution to the precise millimeter and then make a choice as to which alternative to take in working with the wide range of materials available. An American engineer in the same situation may only take five minutes to calculate the most commonly accepted solution from a table. This represents time lost for the French engineer, but the French feel that this allows the project as a whole to be completed more efficiently.

As a student of engineering, it was most interesting to me to see how a French engineer could manipulate calculations and modify designs in order to increase efficiency. I must say that if I had not taken the course on reinforces concrete design taught by Dr. Ran Narayanan at Duke University during the spring semester prior to my internship, I would have been at a tremendous disadvantage. His course allowed me to become familiar with the properties of concrete and the basic concepts used throughout the world in concrete design. Without this I could not have understood and followed the difference between the American and French systems and actually become useful to the office which I interned. The grueling problem sets and projects that Dr. Narayanan assigned were crucial to developing a certain “intuition” and attentiveness to details that are second nature to those who are in the business, but are not always present in a student.

Since reinforced concrete is systematically used in French construction, it is of fundamental importance to understand its properties. It is, of course, a practical union of two materials which are distinctly different. The plain concrete, which is high in compressive strength but weak in tension, is complemented with steel bars which are embedded in the concrete to provide the necessary strength in tension. Calculations dealing with reinforced concrete can be cumbersome at times but the French have chosen to perfect and simplify them through years of research, and now use the properties of concrete to their advantage. The fact that reinforced concrete design can be easily modified up to the last moment is of great importance to construction firms throughout France. It provides flexibility for the architect who is free to make small modifications on plans (often to satisfy his clients) up to two weeks before that part of the structure is poured in place. The on-site engineer has learned to be flexible also, since such modifications have become commonplace throughout France, and everyone is aware that if you want to have the opportunity to work with a specific architect on future projects you are expected to be open to last minute request for modifications. Since the design department is part of the entreprise it must also be willing and able to respond to last minute requests for modifications in design. While it can be personally frustrating for the engineers to have to redo completed plans, for the architect and his client concrete construction offers flexibility which is simply not possible in steel construction. The majority of elements used for the projects are prefabricated, can be easily ordered and delivered in a matter of days, and then must simply be put together on-site. At times this can be advantageous, particularly on the large number of small sites which have little free area to stock material.

Since reinforced concrete has become the preferred method of construction in France, the French have concentrated on developing versatility within that medium, and consequently have a greater range of choice than we do in the United States. Obviously, since they work with different units their reinforcement is sized differently, yet it goes further than that. They actually have a wider range of sizes. In the United States the diameter of the steel reinforcement bars are measured in 1/8 inch increments, 3/8 inch bars are referred to as a #3, 4/8 inch bars as a #4, etc. In France the diameter which is measured in millimeters, can vary in size from 6mm al the way up to 56mm (used only in rare projects). Their bar which is 6mm in diameter and is very commonly used for lateral reinforcement such as stirrups and ties, corresponds to 0.236 in., while the smallest measurement in our system is 3/8in. (0.375in.) When I remarked on this fact to Mr. Potier, he was fascinated and realized for the first time why his company is not allowed to create designs using bars smaller that 10mm. (approximately 3/8in.) when working in countries which use the American Code (which sometimes includes third world countries such as Tunisia and the Philippines).

Another engineer in our firm who commonly worked on foreign projects, Mssr. Imed Ben Fredj, explained to me that the steel industry in the United States is capable of manufacturing steel as small as a 6mm bar, but is reluctant to do so for economic reasons. The steel industry has chosen to limit the number of sizes of steel reinforcement it makes and has set the minimum size at 3/8”. This apparently insignificant difference of size in diameter (just a couple of millimeters) can make a significant difference on a large scale. Fore example, in a project in Tunisia, the firm originally expected to have to use a minimum bar size of 10mm. However, since it was a moderately large project, the decided to have 8mm bars specially fabricated to be used where possible. The amount of steel in the project was reduced by 1500 tons!

French construction differs from American construction, not only in variance of material size, but in theory as well. Since reinforced concrete has been chosen as the preferred method of construction in France since the 1960s, a great deal of research has been done on it there, and in some cases the research has resulted in a different approach than that used here in the States. For example, while our load bearing, concrete walls between apartments are reinforced, through experimentation, the French found the reinforcement unnecessary and have thus chosen to eliminate it. Needless-to-say, this considerably reduces the cost of such projects. Another interesting example is found in a comparison of the calculations of spread footings, that part of the building which supports the weight of the building and distributed this “point charge” (often carried by a column or wall) over an area in such a way that the resistance of the soil beneath the structure is superior to the weight of the structure.

The traditional method used to calculate foundations in France (in the cases where the depth of the foundation is restricted) is called the “Methode des Bielles”. This method assumes that the weight applied to the foundation by a column or wall is transferred to the ground (through the foundation) by a sort of series of “concrete struts”. The study of the weight transferred from the column or wall to the ground by each “concrete strut” that makes up the foundation, determines the amount of steel required in the foundation. The method assumes that the concrete will take the majority of the stress in compression and that each strut (which may be slightly differently shaped) takes and equal amount of weight, and distributes this weight equally over the ground. The method assumes (up to a certain depth of the foundation) that shear is not the governing force and that shear-compression failure, flexure failure, or punching shear should not occur. As a result, less steel is required and yet the resulting structure is quite safe. One should note that this method assumes that the wall or column is centered on the foundation and that the pressure of the soil is uniform. Since this is the case the majority of the time, this method (which is quite easy to calculate and requires less steel than the “more traditional method”) is quite commonly used.

The method approved by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) commonly used in the United States, however, takes into consideration different factors in calculating foundations. Like the French, the American method considers the column or wall above the foundation to be a point load on the foundation. Unlike the French, however, the American method does not envision the concrete as acting like struts which distribute the point load. The ACI considers the column to exert a force directly downward, which is counteracted by two distributed loads exerted by the soil on either side of the foundation. One could consider these distributed loads as a cantilever on either side of the column - pushing in the opposite direction of the force applied by the column or wall. From this point of view, the governing force to take into consideration is the potential shear which may occur within the foundation as a result of the point load of the column or wall (which may create shear-compression failure, diagonal tension failure, or flexure failure). This viewpoint required different methods of calculation from the French and results in a greater use of steel.

The one over-riding lesson I learned throughout my internship was that there are always alternative ways of dealing with different problems and that only through a close consideration of each possibility will the best result be obtained. Both the French and American design systems result in stable, safe structures which are guaranteed the lifetime of the engineer, and yet these buildings are designed using different methods. When I began my internship I had extremely limited experience in reinforced concrete design (after only one semester course in the subject), and it was a bit unsettling to find very few equations that were similar (ever after having converted the units) to what I had become familiar with at Duke. I learned to adapt, however, and found that the end mathematical result was often comparable (though it may vary by a few millimeters), even though the steps were based on a different methodology. As an aspiring engineer, it was invaluable for me to learn to look at common problems from such different angles.

My success in adapting to the French methods and to the challenges of the work at SAE was in large part due to the engineers who work there. They are an exceptional group of people who taught me a great deal. In the very beginning M. Potier directed me toward the BAEL ’91 and the DTUs - the two set of regulations used for design by the Concrete Industry in France. When I was given small projects in the beginning, I would systematically verify the calculations by these sets of rules. M. Edouard Moreau, another engineer who is also a teacher at one of the Grandes Ecoles (the highest level of the university system in France), gave me some of the homework assignments he had given his students, including corrections, for me to refer to when I had a question. And Mr. Potier was marvelous about answering in detail any small question that I posed - often searching back in his old books to give me every piece of background information possible.

Despite my limited experience, the engineers put a great deal of confidence in me and kept me busy calculating the simpler elements of different projects. This gave me a unique opportunity to learn, gain confidence working in their system, and become more and more familiar with the small, important details that demand attention. I was extraordinarily fortunate (and felt deeply honored) to be able to work so closely with them.

Traditionally French firms do not take civil engineering interns until they have completed all of their studies (at a level more advances that the American bachelor’s degree), and then they do not allow them to work on projects that are in progress. The internship is usually the last step of the French student’s education, and it consists of the student redesigning from scratch a project that has already been completed by the company. The student is then required to justify each step of his project and is free at the same time to ask the engineers in the office any question he might have. The final project mush be written up and presented to a “jury” at the university before receiving the “practicing engineer’s degree”.

Since I was not a part of the French university system and was not required to present a project to my school, the engineers allowed me to work alongside them on projects in progress. This helped me learn a tremendous amount and allowed me to see a variety of different aspects of the jobs. On several occasions the engineers took me to different sites in progress where I could see a variety of practical problems first-hand. Back at the office I was able to help with the translations of technical documents for several international projects as well. I enjoyed both of these opportunities, as well as the initial calculations that I did on a variety of projects. I probably learned the most, however, when, in the month of July I was assigned to work with M. Carlos Pimenta on a single project which was just in its initial stages. Here I was given the opportunity to do a wide variety of calculations from the “descent des charges” to the actually reinforcement for the beams, columns, and slabs. This presented an opportunity to review all of the material that I had learned in the previous month and to apply it with greater confidence, paying closer attention to the small details that had seemed overwhelming in the beginning. In addition to visiting the site of the project on which I was working I was included in the meeting with the architect and the on-site engineers. It was fulfilling to work on this project for several weeks and se it advance, and it was my first good taste of real engineering.

While I may never have to use the Methode de Bielles in a future job in the United States and it will not matter whether or not I am familiar with the BAEL ’91 and the DTUs, my internship this summer was an invaluable experience. Although the system may have been different, I was exposed to many of the basics that are necessary for an engineer to master.