Issue 24

The 1990 examination was attempted by 1004 candidates, an increase of 173 on last year’s candidate figures. The overall pass-rate of 40.3 %, while slightly down on last year's percentage, compares favourably with most recent years. The total number of UK candidates was 688, of whom 303 passed, a passrate of 44 %, slightly down on last year’s performance. The total number of overseas candidates was 316, of whom 102 passed, a pass-rate of 32.3 %, down 5.5 % on last year’s performance. However, there were 41 extra candidates this year, and it is hoped that the overseas candidate figures will continue to grow during the 1990s.

In the early part of this century, when the Institution was founded and later incorporated, the design and construction of buildings was carried out in circumstances very different to those that prevail today. Labour was plentiful, capital was relatively cheap, and materials were relatively expensive. As a profession, our preoccupation then was to develop and produce designs using the minimum amount of material and leaving management to others. This objective is today of relatively less importance, although it does still remain a preoccupation with many structural engineers. J.B. Creer and Ron Marsh

During the structural restoration of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, repairs have been carried out to the stone-clad minarets. Dynamic testing and load testing of the minarets has been carried out, together with a detailed survey of construction, to form a historical record and to help in the assessment of the long-term behaviour of the minarets. In October 1987, winds of hurricane strength caused the temporary scaffold roof to move more than had been allowed for, so that it impacted against the building. The damage was widespread and included damage to several minarets. This paper describes the minarets and how they were damaged, assessed, and repaired. K.R. Midwinter and J. Holden

The results of a pilot series of tests, designed to investigate the influence of the presence of a composite floor slab on the performance of steel beam-to-column connections, are reported. Direct comparisons against equivalent bare steel tests show improvements in moment capacity (up to 15 times), with reinforcement anchorage being the main controlling factor. Thus joints to internal columns where the deck runs parallel to the beams and relatively small numbers of bars supplement the basic mesh reinforcement may be expected to give the best performance. J.B. Davison, D. Lam and Professor D.A. Nethercot

Steel connections - who should design them? We have had a number of responses to this subject, as raised in our column on 16 October. Mr J. Renshaw, of Sale, Cheshire, strongly endorses some of the points that were made: Mr R. E. Densley has raised a question of great importance which, if not considered in depth, can cause many problems on a contract. Verulam