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The Structural Engineer, Volume 65, Issue 9, 1987
In October 1984 the Minister for Housing & Construction announced that the Building Research Establishment would undertake a programme of investigations of dwellings constructed from large-panel systems (LPS). The structural adequacy and durability of large panel system dwellings, published recently, results from those investigations and is intended to assist local authorities and their consultants in appraisal of LPS dwellings. A summary sheet (IP8/87) has also been published. This states that the principal findings and conclusions from BRE’s own site investigations and from an analysis of private-consultants’ reports are: ‘No major structural failure of a LPS building in the UK has been reported since the programme of appraisal and strengthening of LPS building was carried out following the collapse of Ronan Point in 1968. The BRE has found no LPS building
Shear resistance of bend-up bars There has been quite a response to Mr Porter’s query (July) regarding the apparent anomaly in the concrete Code, in that it appears to make the shear resistance Vb, independent of the bend-up bar spacing Sb. Verulam
It is suggested that the use of reinforced concrete based on scientific analysis began in the decade 1875-1885. Before that, the medium had been used intuitively, for about 30 years, with a wide range of cements. This use in its turn had developed from the need to provide structural iron with nonstructural fireproof encasement. From 1885 to 1910 there was a rapidIy increasing perception of the behaviour and potential of reinforced concrete. The paper foIIows the emergence of this new building medium, from the middle of the 18th century, when the intimately-bonded combination of metal and concrete of any form held no meaning in building, to 1910 when it had become universally known and was being used much in the manner accepted today and in most of the form now employed. Professor John W. de Courcy