All articles published in the May 2014 issue.
Publish Date – 1 May 2014
Based on his 2014 James Sutherland History Lecture, 'Not up, not down but sideways', James Thomson draws on more than 50 years of experience to provide a background to the process of jacking structures horizontally into the ground to form tunnels, and discusses the impact the technology has for the spatial planning of future projects.
Existing steel structures and plant may need welded modifications or repairs. They may have been designed and built to withdrawn/superseded Standard specifications. In some cases the design and fabrication records may not be available. This paper reviews past UK welding specifications so as to provide guidance on the approaches which can be made to assessing the suitability of an old structure for welding. A list of withdrawn/superseded British Standards, forms an Appendix to this article.
Entering into and working within confined spaces is potentially extremely hazardous. Regrettably, on a number of occasions, these actions have resulted in human tragedy. This article provides an overview of the issues and risks involved.
This guide from law firm Browne Jacobson expands on an article published in the June 2013 issue, from the Institution’s Health and Safety Panel.
This note describes how steel fibre reinforced concrete groundbearing slabs are designed.
This final article in the composite part of this construction compendium looks at three aspects of construction; the provision of lateral restraint to the beams, whether the steelwork is propped and how the concrete is levelled.
In this article, the various types of formwork and falsework needed to construct a concrete bridge are examined. The choice of bridge type depends not only on the general parameters of the scheme (such as typical spans, overall deck area, clearance requirements, alignment and the overall aesthetic), but also on the particular and local parameters of the site, many of which are related to construction.
During remediation of distressed buildings in Dublin, horizontal cracks more than 20mm wide have been seen in the concrete block sub-structure walls. When pyrite-rich calcareous aggregate oxidises beneath a ground floor slab, it can raise and crack the concrete floor. In addition, it has been found that when tightly compacted fill expands, it may grip the substructure walls such that the whole super-structure is lifted off these support walls.
Letters this month include discussion on: flood prevention, the Exam and Eurocode requirements for steel connections.
Institution Fellow, Bob Wilson, suspects that previous titles by Francis Ching notwithstanding, this latest offering might be of more interest to architects than structural engineers.