Practical Design of Laterally Loaded Masonry Panels

Promoting the profession ‘Viewpoint’ in The Structural Engineer for 4 December presented us with the thoughts of the current Chairman of the Scottish Branch, Mr M. J. Murray, on the familiar theme of how we may seek to enhance the status of the profession. Mr Murray advocates the enhancement of the academic requirement to a ‘new style 5-year honours degree’ (by implication, with reference to the present Scottish system of degrees), with the accompanying production of a better remunerated ‘elite brand of honours graduates, engineers who can combine technical excellence with qualities of leadership and worldliness which will generate respect.’ Mr G. C. Peattie of Bristol comments on Mr Murray’s proposals: While I am in general agreement with the views of Mr Murray, I feel there are two areas where he ignores a major problem, i.e. the lack of money. Verulam

The traditional half-brick, one-brick and standard cavity wall have been designed successfully for many years using the design guidance contained in the various recent editions of BS Codes of Practice. The method, however, does have some limitations. These stimulated the search for a new prediction equation. The suggested approach, which is based on a pin-ended model, is developed using a modified Rankine theory. Capacity reduction factors are derived which are similar in value, but not identical with, the P values in BS 5628: Part 1. The approach appears to better predict the behaviour of masonry walls than the present Code guidance when the full range of slenderness ratios, for which some test results are available, is considered. J. Morton

Those of us who have had the opportunity to be associated with him, whether working for him, or with him, regard James Sutherland as a very special breed of engineer. One only has to follow his career to see why. C.W. Yu