The Automatic Calculation of Collapse Loads for Circular-arc Beams

I have worked for many years in education establishments and I have seen sufficient of young people to make me wonder just what it is that makes them respond differently to encouragement to learn. Nevertheless, I have tended to devote my energy to expanding the amount of ' encouragement to learn ' without discriminating too nicely between the many types of ' encouragement ' that go to make up the total. The impressions shall put before you this evening are no more than an assortment of ideas which I have tried to connect together in a coherent pattern. I believe there to be evidence for the validity of the ideas but in very few cases has any attempt been made to test this validity systematically. Some experienced educationists may reject some of my ideas (usually, I suspect, on grounds doubtful as those on which I have adopted them). So, altogether, the field is set for one of those pleasant occasions when we can all differ with one another in the knowledge that, at the end, when stumps are drawn, no one will have been proved right and no one wrong. D.A.G. Reid

The present design procedures for reinforced and prestressed concrete are reviewed briefly. This forms the background for a discussion of the purpose of design and the phenomena meriting consideration in the design process; this discussion encompasses the developments that have been taking place in our understanding of structural behaviour and in the concepts of structural safety. The shortcomings of the present design procedures are then considered and a new philosophy of design, based upon the work of the European Committee for Concrete, is outlined. R.E. Rowe, W.B. Cranston and B.C. Best

Mr. W. J. Larnach (Associate-Member of Council) writes:- 'The author has described a useful method of analysis for frames satisfying his original requirement of complete similarity in each storey, even when this similarity includes a hinge as indicated in his Fig 1. When the similarity is not complete, then it appears from his remarks under " Other types of frames " that the application of his proposed method can become exceedingly cumbersome.'