Design of Reinforced Concrete Opening Corners

The recycling of structural materials has a long tradition, and many notable examples from the past stand today. A prime example is St. Albans Abbey. When the first Norman Abbott, Richard de Caen, demolished the 8th century Saxon Abbey in 1077 and commenced the building of a new one, it was to the ruins of the Roman city of Verulamium that he turned for some of the building materials. The red-brick tower is among the surviving Norman work which used the Roman materials. R.S. Speare

The use of composite action is now well established for steel members (beams and columns) and floors; it has also been introduced for novel forms of composite construction, e.g. doubleskin arrangements. However, the normal practice when designing beam-to-column connections in composite frames is to regard the connection as if it were bare steelwork. This ignores the increasing body of evidence that composite action can significantly influence the structural performance of the connections. Professor D.A. Nethercot

Professor R. E Hobbs (F) (Imperial College) I read the paper with great interest and followed the presentation with even greater interest. I have a couple of questions for the authors.