Most of the Institution’s membership in Britain works in the building industry, but has always felt itself to be only a section, albeit an important one, of that service to society. We have always believed that, if we spent less money on expensive infighting between the professions and more on trying to achieve united action, we would be better rewarded. There are many areas of collaboration which would be worthwhile. It was with this in mind that the Building Industry Liaison Committee was formed under the chairmanship of Clifford Evans (Past President) some years ago.
A form of limited continuous construction: suitable for use in multistorey buildings designed as non-sway frames, is described. The method employs a two-way grid of beam and continuous tibs sitting on double spine beam which pass on each side of the columns. Fabrication and erection are thereby simplified. A number of design issues raised by the use of continuous composite beam, continuous beam restrained by roof decking and columns subject to biaxial bending are discussed in the light of both current Codes of Practice and recent research. P.R. Brett, D.A. Nethercott and G.W. Owens
Mr Liddell: There was really only one suitable fabric for the roses - teflon-coated glass fabric cloth-but, for a variety of reasons, alternatives were considered during the design stages, the main reason being that Frei Otto distrusted the material because of a disastrous experience at Cologne in 1957 with glass fibre cloth coated with PVC. Glass fibres do not degrade in sunlight in the way that organic fibres do, but they are weakened by water and are brittle and hence can suffer mechanical damage.
The paper proposes some rules for selecting bed-joint reinforcement in brick facade walls which may be susceptible to settlement. Loading criteria are adopted in preference to deformation criteria, and the importance of specifying a minimum amount of reinforcement and of the need to provide ductility is emphasised. The use of the equations is demonstrated on a four-storey wall. Professor I.A. MacLeod
Bending moments in brickwork panels Mr A. Aiken's letter, published in July, has prompted several replies. Mr J. E. Saul writes to us from Mold, Clwyd: Mr Aiken's problem is that he has not realised that brick panel design in BS5628: Part l is based on plastic principles. Well mostly, that is panel analysis is, but section analysis is not that is elastic. Anyone could be excused for making this mistake since, apart from being confusing, it is also well wrapped up by the Code writers. Verulam