Daniel Merritt, P.E.
Every structural, reinforcement, and load calculator on this site clears my desk before it goes live. If a number here carries weight, I’ve checked the math against the code it’s supposed to follow.
Licensed P.E. · Civil/Structural
The engineer behind the numbers
Daniel is a licensed Professional Engineer in civil and structural practice. He earned his Master of Science in Structural Engineering at Texas A&M University, where his graduate research focused on how reinforced and prestressed concrete actually behaves under load — load-path analysis, and designing to the code rather than around it.
Over the past 18 years he has worked both sides of the trade: the design office and the jobsite. Cast-in-place foundations, post-tensioned slabs, precast wall systems, infrastructure drainage — across commercial, municipal, and residential projects, in both design and construction-management roles, including as CM lead on three municipal bridge projects. That mix matters here. He has stood in the spot where a clean calculation on paper meets a messy pour in the field, and he builds the tools with that reality in mind.
On AllConcreteCalculator.com, Daniel owns the technical review of everything structural. A calculator that touches reinforcement, load capacity, or the behavior of a footing or wall does not publish until he has traced its formula back to the governing standard, confirmed its assumptions are written down where you can see them, and made sure its limits are stated in plain language. He also writes the engineering explainers that sit beneath those tools, turning code provisions into guidance a contractor can actually act on.
He is deliberate about scope. A free estimator is a planning tool, not a stamped design — and he would rather label a tool “not for structural sign-off” than let anyone mistake a fast number for engineering judgment.
No structural tool ships until it clears four gates.
Traced to the standard
The formula is tied to a published clause — ACI 318, ACI 332, or ASCE 7, by section — not a forum rule of thumb.
Assumptions on the page
Every load, factor, and boundary condition is stated where you can read it, not buried in the code.
Limits in plain language
The tool says what it is for and, just as clearly, where it stops being reliable.
Design work labeled
Anything that needs a licensed stamp is marked “not a design tool” — never published as one.
What I review
Roughly 21 tools across the two categories where a wrong number costs more than money. These are the ones that carry my review before they publish.
Reinforcement, capacity, and behavior — the tools closest to design work, checked against ACI 318 and ASCE 7.
All Structural & Engineering tools →Load-bearing elements below grade — footings, walls, and piers where bearing and reinforcement govern.
All Foundations & Footings tools →How a calculator earns my sign-off
The same five passes on every structural tool, before it is allowed to publish.
Find the governing standard
Identify the exact code and clause the calculation must answer to before any math is written.
Rebuild & verify the math
Reconstruct the formula independently and check it against worked examples from the source.
Interrogate the assumptions
Pin down every load, safety factor, and edge case — and make sure they show on the page.
Pressure-test the limits
Find the inputs where the tool would give a misleading answer, and fence them off.
Decide the scope
Estimator, or ‘see a licensed engineer’? Anything needing a stamp gets labeled, not shipped as design.
The standards I check against
Nothing here rests on rule-of-thumb. Every structural formula traces to a published document.
“A calculator should make you faster, not overconfident. The most important thing some of these tools tell you is when to stop and call an engineer.”— Daniel Merritt, P.E., Lead Structural Engineer & Calculator Reviewer
Where to find Daniel’s work
The tools he reviews, and where to reach him with a technical question or an error report.
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Daniel reviews the structural and foundation calculators on this site and co-authors their technical documentation. Calculator outputs are estimation and planning tools, not a substitute for a licensed engineer’s stamp where one is required by code or contract.