The Effects of the Wheel Tread Profiles and other factors on the Long Travel Motion of Gantry Cranes

A FORMAL request was made by the Union of South Africa Branch on 1 lth January, 1956, that a visit to the Union by the then President, Mr. Stanley Vaughan, and the Secretary, Major R. F. Maitland, should be undertaken and would be greatly appreciated by Branch members. Owing to business commitments, however, Mr. Stanley Vaughan was unable to accept this invitation. The Union of South Africa Branch was informed on 2nd March, 1956, that Mr. Guthrie Brown, the 1956-57 President, and his wife, accompanied by Major Maitland, would be glad to visit Africa during August and September, 1957.

A General Meeting of the Institution of Structural Engineers was held on Thursday, 3rd October, 1957, at 6 p.m., when the Presidential Address for the Session 1957-1958 was given by Professor Sir Alfred Pugsley, O.B.E., D.Sc.(Eng.), F.R.S., M.T.Struct.E., M.I.C.E., F.R.Ae.S.

THE behaviour of castellated I beams which are primarily I beams with regularly spaced hexagonal holes in the webs is investigated for the case of bending in a simply supported centrally loaded beam. An approximate analysis is presented which presumes that the beam will behave as a vierendeel girder, this is followed by a photoelastic investigation in which a model castellated I beam is used. The second part of the experimental investigation is concerned with the stress distribution and deflections of actual steel castellated beams as supplied by the manufacturers. The derived theory is applied to both the latter and the previous photoelastic investigation. Finally the elementary beam theory as used by the manufacturers in compiling safe load tables is examined in relationship to the presented theory and the experimental results. J. E. Gibson and W. M. Jenkins