Mr G. R. Hill (F) (Roland Hill Consulting Engineers) I should first like to congratulate Professor Sedlacek on a superb review of the theory behind structural glass, which is too little described and published. I think the cause of this lack of information - and this may be a little controversial - is the fault of the glass companies, who I think are too restrictive in the dissemination of the knowledge they have. I gave a paper in 1982 in a colloquium held here on ‘Glass as a structural material’. I thought it might be helpful to show some of the progress that has been made since then. Fig Dl shows the first squash court in the world with four, unobstructed, transparent walls, so that TV cameras and spectators could see through the walls. You may recognise the building in which this demountable squash court is erected - Brunel’s station in Bristol. This was designed when I was a Partner in Campbell Reith Hill.
In light gauge construction, the buildability of cold formed sections may be greatly improved by the provision of web openings which allows easy integration of building services within the section depth. In order to assess the structural implication of web openings to cold formed sections, the reduction in the web crippling and the moment resistances of perforated sections were investigated by the author. Chung
Structural safety Structural safety continues to bring comments from members. Two eminent retired District Surveyors have written. Stan Lawrence has followed up his previous contribution (21 Feb. 1995). He quotes from his experience of actual and near failures and relates them to their cause. He writes from Brighton: Many questions now await answers following provoking statements recently published in these columns. I feel like having a go - I should, as I was partly responsible. Verulam