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The Structural Engineer

The author discusses the management consultancy experience of the National Building Agency in introducing programming techniques as tools for improving management and efficiency over the entire building process from inception to design and construction. The large numbers of procedures and participating departments concerned with the pre-contract stages of building for a public client are described, and a system of ‘project Co-ordination’ to ensure concerted action between departments on a multi-project basis, using network analysis as a programming tool, is discussed. k’or the efficient management and control of the output and quality of the professional ofice, design management programming and cost control systems are given, based on network and PERT-COST techniques. Lastly, line-of-balance technique, which has been adopted from production engineering practice to repetitive construction work, is advocated as a simple and powerful programming and control method which combines thc advantages of networks and bar charts. W.W. Chan

The Structural Engineer

The matrix methods of structural analysis are, by now, well known. However, once large structures, such as the present-day skyscrapers, that consist of a vast number of components, are dealt with, various difficulties arise. Some of these difficulties are due to the fundamental approach to structural problems, while others are due to the speed and storage facilities of contemporary computers. A third group of difficulties is due to the various techniques that may be used in the processes of analysis, iteration, etc. K.I. Majid and D. Anderson

The Structural Engineer

The paper describes a method for the dynamic analysis of complex frameworks assuming a distributed mass-stifiness criterion. When compared with the lumped mass-stiffness technique, the proposed method is more accurate for the detcrmination of the response and natural frequencies of such frameworks. Moreover, the lumped mass technique discusses only a limited number of vibration modes, depending on the number of lumped masses assumed by the idealized system. The proposed method, however, trcats the framework as an infinite degrees of freedom system and thus will discuss all its possible modes of vibration. The method is also compared with the 'Duncan receptance technique' showing its superiority especially when dealing with highly redundant complex frameworks. M.E. Mohsin and E.A. Sadek

The Structural Engineer

The paper gives details of the distribution of moments and forces induced in the beams and columns of a large, rigid, multi-storey, steel-framed building, due solely to a vertical settlement of any column. The construction is described and a typical frame is chosen and analysed elastically. From this empirical approach a pattern appears to emerge, and it is hoped that this information will be of use to engineers engaged in thc design of such buildings on difficult sites where sizeable differential scttlements may have to be accepted. E. Litton and J.M. Buston

The Structural Engineer

The paper describes a series of static and dynamic tests which were conducted with two full-scale steel chimneys at the Central Electricity Generating Board, National Tower Testing Station, Cheddar, in the autumn of 1966. D. Sewell