The paper sets out the background to the introduction of high alumina cement to the manufacture of precast, prestressed concrete components in the United Kingdom and outlines the successive recommendations made for its use. It summarises experience gained from the structural appraisals following the collapse of the roof over the school swimming pool at Stepney and relates the site findings to the results of laboratory research. It suggests that there is no case for the reintroduction of high alumina cement for precast, prestressed concrete but that its use in its original function for concrete to resist seawater and ground waters might be reexamined. S.C.C. Bate
The paper describes briefly the developments leading to the need for the appraisal of structures containing elements in high alumina cement concrete; it is based on the author’s experience as consulting engineer and as Convenor of the Institution’s Informal Study Group on High Alumina Cement Concrete. General information is provided on methods of appraisals used, tests, monitoring methods, and factors of safety. The need for further basic and independent research into the various uses of high alumina cement, past and future, is stressed. A.S. Safier
President’s diary On Tuesday 2 December the President will be visiting the Junior Section of the Midland Counties Branch and, at a meeting at 6.0 pm at the Warwickshire CCC Ground, Edgbaston, will give an Address ‘Engineering research-the way and the why’.
You have done me the great honour of electing me as your President-I thank the members of the Institution and undertake to do my best to justify your confidence. Judging from their remarks on taking office, my own sense of humility and feeling of some inadequacy has been common in my predecessors, and it is this realisation, together with my personal experience of the help and friendship that I have received within the Institution, that emboldens me to step into the Presidency with a pleasurable anticipation of its challenges and opportunities. Professor M.R. Horne
Friarton Bridge over the River Tay at Perth is a multispan bridge comprising two independent welded steel box girders, each with a composite lightweight concrete deck slab. The bridge is notable for being one of the first in the United Kingdom to use structural lightweight concrete in its construction, which made composite construction economic for the river span; also for being the first major structure to be designed to the ‘Interim Design and Workmanship Rules’ (successor to the ‘Merrison’ Rules). O.A. Kerensky, J. Robinson and B.L. Smith
Earthquake forces Mr R. J. Pugh seems to reach the same conclusions as Mr R. Farnborough (October 1980) on this subject. He writes: With reference to the letter (June 1980) of Messrs Coverman and Clarke on the subject of earthquake loadings I think that many engineers will agree with Verulam's comment at the end of the letter - namely, that other countries have their own requirements. Verulam