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The Structural Engineer

Our Institution was one of the foundation members of the CPD in Construction Group which has an influence and membership stretching across the whole construction industry and its several professions. It is appropriate to remind all classes of Institution membership of the Group’s definition of CPD as ‘the systematic maintenance, improvement and broadening of knowledge and skills and the development of personal qualities necessary for the execution of professional and technical duties throughout the practitioner’s working life’. Professor A. Bolton

The Structural Engineer

Design rules for assessing the degree of bearing strength enhancement in solid walls subjected to Concentrated load are presented. These are derived from all previously reported experimental and analytical studies of this problem and apply to all types of masonry built with solid units (clay, light and normal-weight concrete, calcium silicate). Relatively simple design rules are proposed because of the large number of variables involved and the scatter of test results. The bearing strength enhancement is expressed as a function of the loaded area ratio and load location, with all other variables being absorbed in the general scatter of test results. The procedure also includes an allowance for the varying influence of wall size on bearing strength enhancement and, when compared to reported experimental results, yields conservative estimates of strength enhancement in almost all cases. A.W. Page and Professor A.W. Hendry

The Structural Engineer

The President: One of our concerns about building in urban areas in recent years has been the subject of water table, although it is not mentioned in the paper. I believe that, in Birmingham, the general rise of the water table, since extraction of water for industrial purposes has ceased, is at the rate of about 3m p.a. One of the consequences is to alter our thinking about pile design, from making them long and thin to making them short and fat. Would you care to say what considerations you gave to the changing water table.

The Structural Engineer

Peter Campbell will succeed Keith White as President of the Institution 1988- 89 at an Ordinary Meeting at Institution headquarters on 6 October 1988. The handover ceremony begins at 6.0 pm when Mr Campbell will give his Presidential Address, ‘Structural engineers-some of their wider responsibilities’, the full text of which will be published in The Structural Engineer in November.