The collapse of rigidly jointed singly redundant light alloy trusses

Dr. D. V. Reddy (Associate-Member) writes that Mr. Rawlings needs to be commended for the generalization of the moment distribution procedure for space frames. The use of direction cosines and matrix formulation of carry-over terms makes the analysis very elegant.

Mr. J. R. Lowe (Member) said there was a great deal of useful information in the two papers and that he intended to confine his remarks mainly to the engineering applications, rather than to the research work described. He showed illustrations of the Hobart Bridge, which had been the initial cause of the paper by Dr. Rydzewski and Mr. Whitbread (who at the commencement of the work had been in the employment of Mr. Lowe’s firm, E. W. H. Gifford and Partners).

The contents of the Jubilee Issue of The Structural Engineer constituted a concise review of the evolution of structural engineering during the first fifty years of life of the Institution and included prognostications of future trends, most of which have since proved to be sound. During the five years since this issue was published in 1958 there has been a remarkable upsurge of progress in practically all the fields of endeavour encompassed by our profession. Many ideas and new methods have been brought into or finally established in practice; many others are in process of investigation and development. During the same period there have been radical changes in general and financial policies and other extraneous matters which, though not directly connected with the science and art of structural engineering, have already affected significantly the demands which structural engineers and their associates in kindred professions must be prepared to meet in order fully to satisfy the needs of the community which they serve. F.M. Bowen F.M. Bowen