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The Structural Engineer, Volume 58, Issue 5, 1980
In its comment to the Department of Industry on the recommendations of Engineering our future-the report of the Deportmental Inquiry under the Chairmanship of Sir Monty Finniston-the Council of the Institution, in concert with the Institutions of Civil and Municipal Engineers, said that to establish a new Engineering Authority, as proposed, to monitor education and training and to register professional engineers in the United Kingdom was wholly misconceived and dangerous. Control of such matters should be left in the hands of the engineering profession.
Mr. S. B. Tietz (F): I should like to deal with a few random problems that I have encountered on rehabilitation jobs. The purpose of old buildings usually changes when they are modified, and the structures have to be adapted to the new use and, sometimes, to changes of volumes. Often the building elevations are also schedules. Materials tailored to one use may not happily adapt to changing loads, spans, and the requirements of building regulations. Furthermore, materials may have deteriorated with age or may be so hidden that deterioration is difficult to establish. Large numbers of regulations under planning, public health, or other statutory requirements, have to be complied with, or circumvented in a manner meeting the approval of enforcement officers. The problems would be less intractable if design engineers could be the arbiters of what is structurally sensible and what is structurally less sensible. More often one has to find the lowest common denominator of acceptability.
A Code of Practice for bridges (BS 5400) is currently being written, and those parts of the Code that relate to concrete bridges have been published. The purpose of this paper is to give the background to the Code clauses that are concerned with crack control in concrete bridges. Particular emphasis is given to certain clauses that do not appear in the current building Code because they are concerned with structural forms or stress situations that occur in bridges but not in buildings, e.g. reinforcement not perpendicular to cracks, and deep voided slabs. Where appropriate, the Code clauses and their implications are compared with present bridge design practice. L.A. Clark and G. Elliott