Issue 7

The School of Civil & Structural Engineering is part of the Faculty of Technology at the University of Plymouth. Other schools in the Faculty cover electronic and mechanical engineering disciplines, architecture, mathematics and computing. The school currently has 21 members of academic staff, 8 research assistants, and 10 technicians. In the current session, 406 students are registered on degree and diploma courses and for research degrees on the Plymouth campus. The school also has responsibility for the 1 st year of HND courses at Somerset College of Art &Technology and South Devon College of Art & Technology. C. Williams

Recently, I had to rebuke a graduate member and a corporate member of ICE, for what I regarded to be their somewhat sweeping and unfair criticism of technicians. As an Incorporated Engineer I am perhaps biased, but I am also forced to admit they may have a point or two. A. Hannaford

There is no doubt that the report prepared by Sir Michael Latham on procurement and contractual arrangements within the construction industry represents the only chance most of us will have to contribute to significant change during our working lives. S.B. White

The Port of Wadebridge lies at the head of the River Camel Estuary on the north Cornish Coast. The 7 mile estuary theoretically provides navigation for coastal vessels to the Port; however, the last regular use was for road stone, imported from the Irish Republic in the 1980s. At the end of 1991, after the completion of the Statutory Procedures, the Secretary of State awarded a contract to bypass the town of Wadebridge to the north with a single-carriageway road. E. Hollingshurst

The results of recent studies on the masonry structure forming the western nave of Exeter Cathedral are presented. These have been generally derived from the point of view of a limit analysis based on the lower-bound theorem of plasticity. A numerical procedure is proposed which aims to generate feasible thrustlines from a sequence of conventional linear elastic finite element analyses which account for cracking. E.W.A. Maunder

Earth has been used for several thousand years as a material in the construction of embankments, dams, walls and occasionally domed roofs. Examples of earth buildings include the Great Wall of China, which is faced only with stone, houses and granaries in many Third World countries, and some of the older dwellings in many other places. It is estimated that about a third of the world’s population live in earth dwellings. R.H. Saxton