La Lumière, London E1

‘Privatisation’, ‘market economy’ and ‘competition’ are some of the words most frequently heard at work, in the home, and in the media, in Moscow. What happens in Moscow also holds true to a greater or lesser degree across the countries of the former USSR. Lyudmila M. Burke

Restoration of the Archbishop’s Palace in Maidstone allowed an interesting insight into how the building was altered and structurally weakened over the centuries. As a local authority funded project, extensive precontract surveying was carried out in an attempt to minimise unforeseen costs. Strengthening of floors to meet public-use loading led to the testing of a number of full-size secondary floor beams. This paper describes in general terms the restoration works and provides details of the testing and the results produced. R.C. Lemon and G.E. Dickinson

This paper is concerned with the design method for providing resistance against punching shear for flat slabs where the slab extends substantially up to the surrounding supports - e.g. an internal panel of a multibay flat slab. A signifcant aspect generally ignored in the design of flat slab structures is the development of what is commonly referred to as membrane action. When a load is applied to the slab, the deflection of the slab is accompanied by an outward expansion of the slab boundaries. This tendency to expand laterally is restrained by the supporting columns, beams or walls. The adjacent area of the slab also acts as a stiff restraining diaphragm. This membrane action induces internal axial compressive stresses that significantly influence and enhance the punching shear resistance of the slab. The design method is developed on the basis of a test programme jointly funded by the Department of the Environment and the British Cement Association. The specimens were 9m x 9m in plan and 250mm thick and represented an area of slab surrounding an internal column of a continuous flat slab. It is shown that there is a significant increase in punching shear resistance compared with the smaller conventional specimens. A design method taking membrane action into account is proposed. P.S. Chana and S.B. Desai