Open Discussion: Education and Practice in Europe

Europe may sound like (and be intended to sound like) a single place. But, of course, it is not. It is a grouping of mature democracies with laws, institutions, and practices, developed over many centuries. Each and every country in Europe is different (profoundly different), and what may be appropriate in one could turn out to be disastrous in another. But although these differences do exist, there are certain elements which are common throughout and which must be understood by anyone wishing to practise engineering in any of the main European countries. P.R. Rice

Mr P. Evans (Ove Arup & Partners) As noted in my colleagues’ paper, the site investigations included a sophisticated programme of pile tests to confirm the feasibility of forming enlarged footings to augered piles in the Woolwich and Reading Beds’. However, we did not quite start out in that way.

Mr J. A. Baird (F) (Swedish Finnish Timber Council) Some years ago when I was involved with the design of lattice tubular steel portals with the Taylor Woodrow Group, I evolved a method of considering the U-frame effect of two portals connected by steel purlins at regular intervals. The effect was small but usually enough to limit the number of knee braces required to the bottom chord when in compression.