Discussion New Steelworking Facilities at Harland and Wolff’s Shipyard, Belfast

Whilst the effect of lateral loads has been given most attention in the investigation of shear-wall-building structures, few publications deal with the effect of gravity loads. Even less attention was paid to the effect of temperature changes.

The Sports Centre at Meadowbank provides a range of facilities for outdoor and indoor sports and its aim is to act as a centre for the people of Scotland, particularly those of Edinburgh.

The objective of this study is to analyse an annular slab fixed at the outer edge and supported by equally spaced columns on the inner edge. The thin plate theory is used in this analysis. The results are presented in the forms of a table and charts which show that deflexion and stress resultants decrease as the ratio of the inner radius to the outer radius increases. The number of columns, with the range of four to sixteen, has not much effect on maximum radial bending moment, but the maximum magnitudes of the other stress resultants and deflexion decrease as the column number increases. Reducing the column width increases the shearing forces and the transverse bending moment. However, the deflexion and the radial bending moment are insensitive to the variation of the column width.