The Structural Engineer and Modern Problems - Presidential Address

Of great interest to structural engineering is the sand lime (calcium silicate) process for the manufacture of bricks, building blocks, tiles, and slabs. This has a number of important advantages, including the fact that no skilled labour is required and the products have a much greater resistance to crushing strain than the burnt clay brick, the edges are all mathen1atically straight and even without bulging, warping or twisting, as in the case of ordinary bricks, and a wide range of convenient, sizes and shapes can be made to order without difficulty. Until quite recently the sand lime process has been almost completely neglected in Great Britain, and accordingly therefore considerable interest attaches to the fact that a fine new sand lime brick plant was started some time ago at Littlehampton in Sussex by the Arun Brick Co., Ltd. This is on the latest high pressure principle, with a capacity of 110,000 to 120,000 bricks per week, and a brief description will not be without interest, especially in view of the continued scarcity and high price of burnt clay bricks and the fact that the use of this method is increasing rapidly on the Continent and in the United States and Canada, the total world production of sand lime bricks being now over 2,500,000,000 per annum. It will be remembered that

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IN our issue of October we published a description of the two beet sugar factories about to commence operations at Ipswich and Ely. Below we give particulars of a third which has just been erected at Kidderminster for the West Midland Sugar Co., Ltd., of which Lord Weir, Lord Invernairn, J.B. Talbot Crosbie, Esq., Cecil Brinton, Esq., and Mr. Westwood are the directors. Constructed and equipped by Messrs. Duncnn Stewart and Co., Ltd., London Road Ironworks, Glasgow, the new factory is a steel-framed structure, the contract for the supply and erection of the steel framework having been entrusted to Messrs. Braithwaite and Co. (Engineers), Ltd., Crown Bridge Works, West Bromwich. This factory is the second steel-framed beet sugar factory of all-British design and equipment to be erected in Great Britain or the Continent, and is also the second establishment on the programme of the corporation, which also includes four other factories to be built in the near future.