About

My name is Jesse Bonanno and I am a Civil Engineer turned Software Engineer.

I have an interest in mechanics of solids, structural analysis and practical programming that I hope to explore through my blog.

By combining my knowledge in engineering with some technical literacy I hope to be able to construct resources that are insightful and useful for others.

Civil Engineering

I graduated from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) with a Civil Engineering degree at the end of 2019. From 2020 through to 2023 I worked as a temporary works engineer in Sydney, primarily working on the Rozelle Interchange. Over the years I became familiar with the following:

sheet pile & pile designs
bearing capacity assessments
slope stability assessments
timber, concrete & steel member design
working platform design
rock anchor designs
formwork design
using CAD, Rapt, spacegass, RS2 & Slide

Some of my most interesting and memorable designs are:

Tunnel boring machine thrust block and headwall design for the MTMS2 project.
Anchor & waler designs for the basement of a high-rise building development in the Paramatta CBD.
Tie down anchors to resist earthquake loading for The Brewery refurbishment near Central.
Reinforced soil walls and sheet pile walls for M6 Stage 1.
Utility impact assessment for bearing pressure under crane for bridge lift & installation at Sydney Gateway.
Temporary support for freight train using innovative retaining system for the Botany Rail Duplication
Slope stability assessment for culvert installation using 3D analysis for Springfarm Parkway
Scanning steel in historic reinforced concrete bridge and assessing capacity to support excavator at Rozelle Interchange
Testing painting supports at the Art Gallery of NSW

Software Development

I first tried my hand at programming during my undergraduate thesis when i realised i could automate the data collection process. I used python to generate finite element models in SAP2000 and then processed the output data in excel.

From 2020 to 2022 I became a self taught programmer undertaking courses like CS50 and spending hundreds of hours on open source development.

From 2022 to 2024 I completed a masters of information and technology at UNSW while I continued to work as a temporary works engineer.

Open Source Work

The first package I developed, IndeterminateBeam, was created to analyse 1D indeterminate beams since I struggled to find a simple free tool for performing unlimited calculations.

The package went through a rigorous code review and is now published in the Journal of Open-Source Education. A web version of the program can be found here and here and documentation about the theory behind the program can be found here

I later developed an open source package for slope stability calculations (pySlope) to rival expensive commercial software for simple applications which gave the same results as the commercial version.

Both packages developed are used commercially to power tools on civils.ai (now calcforge.com).

SkyCiv

Since mid 2024 I have worked at SkyCiv as a Product Developer working on tools in the Quick Design Package.

I have been able to combine both of my experiences to develop the following tools: