The Role of the Structural Engineer in Maintaining the Built Environment

On Saturday 14 May 1994 Blackpool Tower celebrated its centenary. To commemorate this occasion a technical paper and correspondence relating the the design and construction of the tower, first published between 1893 and 1895, are reproduced below. R.T. McDonald

Blackpool Pleasure Beach (BPB), Britain’s most popular attraction with over 6.5 million visitors annually, occupies a 42 acre site on the sea front 2km south of the centre of Blackpool, Lancashire. Established in 1896, over 130 rides and attractions compete for space on a congested and exposed site. These include three famous and historic traditional timber rollercoasters ‘Grand National’ (1935) ‘Big Dipper’ (1921) ‘Rollercoaster’ ( 1909, reconstructed 1993) as well as a steel toboggan coaster (‘Avalanche’, 1988), a smaller timber coaster for young children (‘Zipper Dipper’, 1934), and several coaster derivatives such as Europe’s first modem looping coaster (‘Revolution’, 1979) and an indoor steel- racked ‘dark ride’ (‘Space Invader’, 1984). J.M. Roberts

This paper describes a conceptually simple and computationally eficient method of determining the collapse load of structures comprising of a number of masonry blocks. The method uses the upper-bound theory of plasticity in conjunction with geometrical compatibility criteria to obtain solutions to problems involving single- and multi-span arches; well established rigorous linear programming methods are used to obtain solutions. Specific parameters such as ring separation and attached spandrel walls can be modelled using the method. It is expected that case studies will be described in subsequent papers. M. Gilbert and Professor C. Melbourne