It is often found in the design of bridges, and sometimes in the design of floor slabs and beams for buildings, that the spans are of uniform section and symmetrically placed. C. Lawrence
Text of a letter from the President of the Institution, Mr. D.A.G. Reid, CBE and the Chairman of the Council of Engineering Institutions, Sir Robert Wynne-Edwards, dated l2 May 1966: ‘Dear Minister, For some months past the Council of this Institution, together with the Chairman and some members of the Council of Engineering Institutions, have been giving anxious consideration to matters associated with the building of the new County Hall for the County of Bedford. You will, we are sure, be familiar with the case.'
A method is presented for the analysis of rigid space frames using iterative techniques. In no case are matrices larger than 3 x 3 used, so that the procedure may be carried out by manual methods or may, if desired, be programmed for computation using an electronic computer. The method is illustrated by two examples, one without sway and one involving sway of the frame. B. Rawlings
The paper describes tests on twenty-seven Lytag concrete columns. Sixteen of the columns were reinforced with varying percentages of square twisted steel and the remaining eleven were unreinforced. It was found that, although the ultimate loads of reinforced Lytag concrete columns are slightly less than those of equivalent gravel concrete columns, the load factors are satisfactory. It is therefore safe to design reinforced Lytag concrete columns with the permissible stresses specified in CP l14 (1957). C.O. Orangun
Mr. D. G. ,Alcock (Associate-Member) writes:- ‘The authors claim to present a unified approach for the determination of the degrees of freedom or indeterminacy of plane and space frames. In fact the claim is rather ambitious as it can only yield the degree of indeterminacy of a structure which is already known to be stable.'
Mr. C. B. Stone (Vice-president) said it was a common failing of consultants not to admit that their Structures leaked; however, he himself did not know of any case of leakage due to shutter ties. Mr. Jackson had shown there was a weakness but Mr. Stone thought that, if there had been a low water/cement ratio and thorough compaction by vibration, the cavity would not have formed.
The Institution welcomes as its President for the Session 1966-67 Dr. D.D. Matthews, who takes office on 6 October. Denis Dearman Matthews was born in 1912. His grandfather, Henry Matthews, President of the National Federation of Building Trades Employers 1924, was a leading Manchester builder and founder of the firm of H. Matthews & Sons, of which the President’s present firm of Matthews & Mumby was originally a subsidiary. His father, Walter Matthews, who in 1938 was a Vice-President of the then Institute of. Builders, succeeded as head of the firm and besides being prominent in the industrial field was a strong supporter of technical education and training.