Recent Developments in European Standardisation for Fabrication and Erection of Steel Structures

Moment connections are crucial to many common types of steel structure. Despite substantial research there are no fully agreed design procedures for such connections. The SCI/BCSA Connections Group has been working to develop standardised approaches to moment connections and will shortly publish Joints in Steel Construction - Moment Connections. Within the National Steel Construction week a discussion will take place at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London on Thursday, 18 May 1995, jointly sponsored by the Institution of Structural Engineers, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Steel Construction Institute. This discussion will review the principal decisions that underpin the development of these standardised methods. D.G. Brown

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 sewices 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 load resistances of perforated sections were investigated. The effects of different opening sizes and shapes, and of different forms of stiffening around the openings ,were also studied. A total of six test series with 57 web crippling and 41 beam tests were carried out on cold formed sections with single and multiple web openings; the results of the tests are presented in detail. K.F. Chung

Mr M. J. Downing (Trent Concrete) We have actually moved a building. It was not built intentionally as a demountable building. We built a single-storey industrial structure in the 1970s, and a smart industrialist spotted that it was a prefabricated building. He bought it very cheaply and asked us if we could move it from one site to another, which we did. That is the only occasion I am aware of where that has been done.