The Minister of Housing and Local Government formally laid before Parliament on 5 February the Building (Fifth Amendment) Regulations 1970. These regulations, if approved, will come into operation on 1 April 1970 but will not apply to work that was: (a) completed before the date of the coming into operation of these regulations; or (b) completed after that date in accordance with plans deposited with the local authority before that date, with or without any departure or deviation from those plans.
Long-term reform of building legislation 5. The Institutions do not propose to argue here the adequacy of the general procedure for building regulation laid down under the Public Health Acts. At another time they will be glad to make suggestions for the amendment of this legislation, but those suggestions must be related to the date when revised legislation is likely to be brought into operation, and must be framed with knowledge of the extent of local government reform and of the resources available.
Analytical and experimental studies have been carried out at Imperial College into various aspects of limit state design when applied to highway bridges. To obtain an indication of the inherent load factors against the various appropriate limit states, three typical bridges were theoretically investigated. The predicted load factors were compared with those proposed for use with new design procedures. Dr. A.R. Flint and L.S. Edwards
Particular requirements of a length of urban elevated motorway are described, which have been satisfied by the use of a bridge deck using ‘top-hat’ section box beams with no transverse diaphragms. The deck has proved economical and suitable for a wide range of bridges. During the development of the design of the deck, methods of analysis for the effect of concentrated loads have been investigated and the paper describes an approach based on finite element techniques and the derivation from this of a simpler technique for design ofice use, both of which provide satisfactorily accurate results. D.M.A. Hook and B. Richmond
The general theory of beams curved in plan with torsional restraint at the supports is explained, with particular reference to prestress loading. It is proved that the torsional moments due to prestress loading are solely dependent on the support bending moments, and the conditions of concordancy are formulated for a circularly curved beam. It is suggested that for most practical cases the support bending moments in circularly curved beams can be calculated to sufficient accuracy assuming the beam is straight, and the order of accuracy is given. A similar approximation can also be made when analysing the effects of loads other than prestress. R.J. Garrett and R.A. Cochrane
Western Avenue Extension is a 4 km (2 1/2 mile) elevated road to near Motorway standards, currently under construction in West London. D.J. Lee