Some Recent Foundation Research and its Application to Design Written Discussion on Paper by Dr. G.

The author is to be congratulated on having tackled the difficult problem of linking the behaviour of the foundation with that of the structure, and with considerable success. It is obvious that a very wide field of research has been opened up, but it may not have been noticed by readers that this is one aspect of a more general approach to the problem of the behaviour of the complete structure, frame, encasement, floors, walls, foundations and all. In recent years very great advances have been made in the knowledge of the behaviour of bare steel frames, both under working (elastic)
conditions, and also at " ultimate " or " plastic " collapse. Without in any way detracting from the merit of such work it is nevertheless clear from a study of Fig. 7 (c) of the paper that the stresses in the frame can in addition be modified, in some cases very considerably, by the other elements of the complete structure, most of all by floors and walls.