Structural Intelligence Podcast6 Juni 2025

S1E3 - AI, Open Source, and the Evolving Engineer w/ Brooks Smith

In this episode, Owen Keenan sits down with Brooks Smith, Chartered Structural Engineer, open-source contributor, and Head of Engineering R&D at ClearCalcs.

Brooks shares his unconventional career journey, from testing software at Ansys to conducting forensic investigations at the Empire State Building, before moving into cold-formed steel design and engineering platform development. Together, they explore how the engineer’s toolkit is evolving, from spreadsheets and hand calcs to cloud-based systems, AI-driven workflows, and data-informed design standards.

Whether you’re a design engineer, software-savvy practitioner, or just curious about the future of engineering, this episode dives into the mindset and tools shaping our profession.

⏱️ Episode Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction

1:20 – Brooks Smith’s background

5:40 – Open-source projects and programming journey

7:20 – Transition into structural engineering

10:20 – Evolution of engineering tools over time

17:50 – How tools have improved practice

22:01 – Defining AI in the context of structural engineering

26:25 – AI’s role in structural design workflows

29:17 – What is emergent design?

31:36 – How innovation shapes standards and practice

33:47 – ClearCalcs tools and what’s next in development

38:30 – AI host summary and closing thoughts🔗 Resources & Mentions:

🔧 ClearCalcs
https://www.clearcalcs.com/?utm_source=owenkeenan&utm_medium=partnerships&utm_campaign=podcast-feature

👤 Brooks Smith – LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com/in/smithbh

💻 Open-source tools
anaStruct (GitHub)
pyCUFSM (GitHub)

📽️ CFSEI Presentation Slides (2024)
Google Slides

📄 CFSEI Abstract
Read the Abstract

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