THE PRESIDENT, proposing a vote of thanks to the author, said, all were extremely grateful to Mr. Short for his paper and his introduction of it. If they did not know already, they now knew that structural engineering in particular and construction in general was not a job for the amateur. He recalled having read in the Code of Practice that demolition should be carried out by expert contractors.
In 1953. the author of this note suggested that approximate calculations for the behaviour of a suspension bridge under superimposed loads might be based upon a foundation analogy in which the cable was replaced by an elastic foundation of modulus k = a . w/d, . . . . . (1) where w is the dead weight of the bridge per unit length (treated as uniform) and d is the dip of the cable. The stiffening girder of the real bridge is then treated as a beam on an elastic foundation with this modulus. The coefficient a, in this expression, by consideration of the resistance of a heavy inextensible * cable to displacement by vertical loads, was shown to be of the order of 20, but it was pointed out that in practice the choice of a must, in the limit, be empirical. Sir Alfred Pugsley
Dr. HALSTEAD, introducing his paper said it was intended primarily to help structural engineers in the design stage of a structure, and it was not just something which would help to discover what had gone wrong with a structure; the latter was more the function of the chemist or physicist. That explanation would avoid unpleasant inquests on the kinds of failure he would illustrate, which might lead to the thought that it was better not to use concrete at all!
A descriptive paper dealing with the design and erection in reinforced concrete of the largest newspaper building in Europe and with the serious fire that occurred during its construction. R.E. Foot