Discussion on Halifax Building Society New Head Office by W.E.W. Brook and H. Halsall

Sir Alfred Pugsley (F) : I will just devote a few minutes, by way of introduction, to the place of history in the teaching of structural engineering.

Professor Murray has developed methods for the analysis of stiffened plates which agree very closely with the test results. Unfortunately the design rules are not too direct... David Allen

The authors have presented an interesting method for the rapid estimation of maximum bending moments in decks of suspension bridges. Their approximate analysis draws to a logical conclusion the more general method described by Bowen and Charlton (reference 3 of the paper). It is clear that the use of symmetry and antisymmetry offers a considerable computational advantage :two sets of three linear simultaneous equations are solved far more quickly than one set of six. F. Van der Woude, M.S. Gregory and H.I.A. Hegab