North America

Structural Engineering Services in Chicago

Every engineering discipline your Chicago project needs — designed to AISC 360, ASCE 7, AWS D1.1 and delivered with overnight turnaround — your evening RFI is answered by your next morning.

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Quick answer

Structural Engineering Services serves clients in Chicago, United States with 60+ engineering services, working to AISC 360, ASCE 7, AWS D1.1, ASME B31.3, ASME Sec VIII. Key sectors: Oil & Gas, Petrochemical, Commercial Construction, Power.

Design basis

Codes, standards & units for Chicago

Drawings that arrive in the wrong convention cost days on the shop floor. Here is exactly what we design and draft to for Chicago.

Standard	Discipline	How we apply it
AISC 360	Structural steel	Member, connection and stability design for frames, racks and platforms
ASCE 7	Loads	Wind, seismic, snow and load-combination basis for every analysis model
AWS D1.1	Welding	Weld symbols, prequalified joints and inspection callouts on shop drawings
ASME B31.3	Process piping	Wall thickness, flexibility and CAESAR II stress acceptance
ASME Sec VIII	Pressure equipment	Vessel, separator and exchanger design calculations in PV-Elite

Units on Chicago jobs

imperial or metric

You choose at kick-off: imperial-led sheets for US fabricators, or full metric. We hold one unit system per package and never mix them mid-drawing.

What lands in your folder

Native Tekla, STAAD.Pro, CAESAR II and PV-Elite files plus PDF, DWG, DXF, NC1/DSTV and IFC.

Drawing conventions your fabricator expects

Sheets & scales: ANSI D (22"×34") or ARCH D title blocks, 1/4" = 1'-0" GAs
Dimensions: Feet-and-inches to 1/16", with metric dual-dimensioning on request
Steel grades: ASTM A992, A572 Gr.50, A36 and A500 Gr.B/C
Bolting: ASTM F3125 Gr. A325 / A490 — snug-tight or pretensioned, TC assemblies noted
Welding: AWS D1.1 weld symbols with CWI-ready inspection callouts
Projection: Third-angle projection, north arrow and column grid per the EOR drawings

How we work with you

A working day with your Chicago team

Nothing about this is improvised. Chicago is 11 h 30 m behind our engineering desk (UTC+05:30), so we run a fixed daily rhythm around your working hours in Chicago.

Your day in ChicagoOur engineering deskExtended deskShared hours

09:00–17:30

00:00–06:30

22:00–00:00

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09:00Your morning20:30 here

13:00Your midday00:30 here

17:30Your hand-off05:00 here

Clock positions use standard time for Chicago; daylight saving shifts the band by one hour for part of the year.

Extended-desk overlap

1 h 30 m

Our extended shift covers 09:00–10:30, Chicago time

RFI turnaround

Next morning

Queued at hand-off and answered before your next morning

Review rhythm

Weekly + daily log

A recorded model walkthrough you watch on your clock, plus a daily written log

09:00
1. Overnight drop is waiting
Models, drawings and calculation updates produced while Chicago was closed are already in the shared folder when your day starts.
09:00–10:30
2. Extended-desk window
A senior engineer holds an extended shift so Chicago can take calls and close RFIs live rather than by email.
17:30
3. You hand off
Mark up the drawings, raise RFIs and set the next priority before you log off. The queue is picked up at the start of our next shift.
Next 09:00
4. Revisions back
Comments closed, revision clouds in place and the next issue in your folder before the first Chicago meeting of the day.

Sector focus

Industries & project types in Chicago

Most Chicago enquiries come from these four sectors — and from the fabricators and EPCs serving them.

Oil & Gas

Sector page

Upstream, midstream and downstream packages for operators, EPCs and the fabricators who build for them.

Separator & metering skids
Pipe racks and process structures
B31.3 stress packages
Wellhead and compressor modules

Petrochemical

Sector page

Process-unit steelwork and equipment where clash-free layouts and hot stress cases decide the schedule.

Columns, reactors & exchangers
Unit racks, platforms and access
Hot and cryogenic stress analysis
Revamp and tie-in detailing

Commercial Construction

Sector page

Frame, connection and BIM work for offices, retail, hospitals and mixed-use towers.

Steel frames and connection design
Composite floors, stairs and railings
LOD 400 Tekla shop drawings
Revit / Navisworks coordination

Power

Sector page

Thermal, renewable and balance-of-plant structures and piping, from boiler house to switchyard.

Boiler and turbine-hall steelwork
Chimneys, stacks and flue ducts
B31.1 power piping stress
Transmission and substation structures

Commercial & compliance

Contracting, IP and invoicing for Chicago, United States

Engineering is the easy part of an offshore engagement — the contract, the IP and the invoice are what stall it. Here is how we set those up for Chicago, United States clients.

Fixed-price package

Quote in 24 h · 2–4 milestones

Best for: A defined scope — one building, one skid, one vessel

Lump sum against an agreed drawing and tonnage list. Milestone invoicing, and change orders only for scope you approve in writing.

Rate-based delivery

Weekly reporting · monthly invoice

Best for: Scope that is still moving

Per-drawing, per-tonne or per-hour rates fixed up front, with a weekly burn and progress report so the invoice never surprises you.

Dedicated engineers (ODC)

Monthly per seat · 1-month notice

Best for: A continuous workload across many projects

Named engineers reserved for you each month, working in your folder structure, templates and drawing standards under your team lead.

The paperwork, up front

Working with SES from United States

Invoicing currency: USD by default — other currencies on request
Payment terms: Milestone or monthly invoicing, net 30 days from invoice
Contract vehicle: NDA, then a master services agreement with a priced scope schedule per package
IP & ownership: Models, drawings, calculations and native files transfer to you on final payment
Cross-border paperwork: Tax-residency and invoice documentation supplied for United States finance and treaty relief
Insurance: Professional indemnity cover; certificate issued with the proposal on request

Local practice: We work behind your Engineer of Record as detailer and analyst; where a state or provincial PE/P.Eng seal is needed it is arranged with a licensed local engineer, and submittals are formatted for AISC-certified fabricator review cycles.

Confidentiality, IP & data security

Mutual NDA signed before drawings are exchanged — usually inside one working day.
All models, drawings, calculations and native files become your property on final payment.
Project data lives in access-controlled folders; only the named team on your job can open them.
No sub-contracting of your scope to a third party without your written consent.
Every deliverable is produced on genuine licensed software, so your submission chain stays clean.
Transfers over your portal, SharePoint, or our encrypted link — whichever your IT policy allows.

Coverage

Chicago and the markets around it

Chicago is one of several United States markets we support — the same engineers, the same drawing standards, wherever the fabricator sits.

Work is delivered remotely from our engineering office: overnight turnaround — your evening RFI is answered by your next morning.
No travel premium, no minimum project size, and the same senior review on every package.

Start a Chicago package All locations

Chicago within United States

We support the same disciplines in every United States market below.

USA (country overview)Houston New York Los Angeles Dallas Atlanta Seattle Denver Phoenix Boston Philadelphia San Francisco

Across North America

Regional peers on the same code basis and delivery model.

Canada

Every service we deliver in Chicago

Open a discipline to see the exact scope you need. Each page sets out deliverables, the codes we work to in Chicago and a typical turnaround.

62 services

Steel Structures & Detailing in Chicago

Tekla-based 3D modeling and fabrication-ready steel detailing for every structure type.

Structural Analysis & Design in Chicago

Code-compliant analysis, member design, connection and foundation design.

Piping Design & Stress in Chicago

3D piping, layouts, isometrics and CAESAR II stress analysis for process plants.

Static Equipment Design in Chicago

Mechanical design of pressure vessels, heat exchangers, tanks and stacks.

Skid Package Engineering in Chicago

Complete design of modular skids — vessel, piping, structure and lifting.

Finite Element Analysis in Chicago

Advanced simulation on ANSYS Mechanical Enterprise for critical components.

CAD, BIM & Drafting in Chicago

Detail engineering, BIM modeling and model reviews across all disciplines.

Start your project

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Free, no-obligation proposal from a senior engineer.

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