Correspondence on Viewpoint on Cracks in Domestic Masonry Walls by Professor Iain MacLeod

Author’s introduction: I think that the Institution is to be congratulated on its choice of subject for discussion in January 1984. (At the same time I apologise for my crack in the last line of the introductory note; I had no idea that the BBC would go overboard with their programmes about George Orwell.)

Design of multistorey framed buildings The correspondence stimulated by the letter from Mr B. Deakin, published in March with some comments from Mr F. H. Needham, was so heavy that we have had to carry over some of the letters from last month. Mr Deakin queried the validity of the method of frame design in which it is assumed that beams are simplay supported when carrying vertical loads while beam-to-column connections resist wind moments; Mr. Needham described the method as anachronistic. Now Mr B. S. Williams, writing ,from Cranleigh in Surrey, endorses Mr Deakin's views: I do not think the use of the ‘traditional design method’ is as rare as Mr Needham would have us believe. I understand that this method is still on the curricula of some structural engineering courses, which must mean there are still young engineers who have been taught that the method is acceptable. Mr Needham does not recommend the adoption of the ‘traditional design method’ which he thinks is anachronistic. Surely, as Constrado’s chief engineer, he should be positive and condemn a method which, he implies, uses assumptions that are incompatible with the actual behaviour of the structure. Verulam

The consumer protection legislation of the past few years appears to have led to an increase in claims for redress for faulty building design or construction. No doubt, many of them are settled privately, but it appears that there is also an increase in litigation to deal with those cases where the differences cannot be resolved so easily. A.R. Mackay