Issue 23/24

The new £61.5M corporate headquarters of Scottish Widows at Port Hamilton, Edinburgh, looks set to become one of the finest examples of the versatility of precast concrete in providing structural and architectural components for buildings, as well as its ability to be used in conjunction with other building materials and construction methods to achieve the desired end-result for the client. H.P.J. Taylor

SARTOR (an acronym for ‘Standards & Routes to Registration’) is the document in which the Engineering Council codifies registration requirements for education and training for all grades of engineers. All engineering institutions that are nominated bodies of the Engineering Council work within the framework defined by SARTOR which was last revised in 1990. R.C.A. Eastwood

This paper describes some of the observations made by the author on a 12 000 mile round tour to the USA and Canada in October/November 1994 as a recipient of one of the two 1994 Rowen Travel Awards administered by the Educational Trust of the Institution of Structural Engineers. A large amount of information was gathered during visits to 20 organisations concerned with steel and composite bridges in the still pre-eminent steel-producing areas of the northeastern USA and Ontario. Various aspects of bridge engineering culture and practice in that region are described. J. Tubman

The paper presents part of a wide-ranging investigation on normal and high strength concrete corbels. Corbels with short span/depth ratios of up to 2 are considered, and a theoretical design procedure is derived based on the fundamental approach adopted for the analysis of deep beams by previous researchers. The theory takes account of the improved ductility imparted by steel fibres to the reinforced concrete corbels. Proffesor P.S. Mangat and W. Halabi

A new approach to dealing with global buckling of structures has been introduced, based on the concept equivalent column. In this paper the theoretical basis equivalent column is discussed, and the treatment complex behaviour; including torsion of bracing elements non-rectangular plan layouts, is described. K.A. Zalka and Professor I.A. MacLeod

Analysis and ductility requirements of semi-rigid composite frames Author: Dr T. Q. Li Supervisor: Professor D. A. Nethercot Contact: Professor D. A. Nethercot, University of Nottingham, Department of Civil Engineering, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD (tel: 01159 513 907). This project has been concerned with the influence of composite connections on the performance of composite frames. It has included work on the connections themselves, performance requirements for connections in frames, and on moment redistribution in composite frames. One of its main objectives has been to assess the levels of performance required from the connections that would permit the economic use of simple design procedures for semicontinuous composite frames. Composite beams: reliability and longitudinal shear resistances with profiled sheeting Author: Dong-Jie Huang Supervisor: Professor R. P. Johnson Contact: Professor R. P. Johnson, Engineering Department, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL (tel: 01203 523 129). There were two distinct projects, both concerned with the design procedures of Eurocode 4: Part 1.1 (now DD ENV 1994-1-1) for resistances of composite steel and concrete beams for buildings. The partial safety factors for these are denoted ya, yc, and ys, for steel, concrete, and reinforcement, respectively. In the first project, a new method for the statistical calibration of these factors was devised and applied to reported test data for 122 beams. The results confirmed the ‘boxed’ values given in the Code. The use of ya = 1.05, as proposed in the UK, gives reliability below the target value, if the variability of structural steel is as great as was assumed. Lack of data on the statistical properties of materials, as used on site, is the main source of error in this work. The response of non-sway steel framed structures with semi-rigid connections Author: Dr S. M. Lau Supervisor: Dr P. A Kirby Contact: Dr P. A. Kirby, Department of Civil & Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sir Frederick Mappin Building, Sheffield S1 4DU (tel: 01 14 282 5054; fax: 01 14 272 8910). Dr D. B. Moore, Building Research Establishment, Garston, Watford WD2 7JF (tel: 01923 664 171; fax: 01923 664 010) This thesis describes work sponsored by the Building Research Establishment which consisted of an appraisal of test data emanating from three earlier experimental studies during which five full-scale steel frames with semirigid joints were tested in a 2-dimensional manner. The frames contained joints with varying degrees of moment resistance and rotational stiffness which led to frame responses involving a significant interaction between beams and columns. This interaction influenced both beam and column deflections, the patterns of frame moments, the ultimate capacities of the members, and the collapse modes.

Checking building design John Smith (Verulam, 15 October 1996) seems to have struck a nerve. Many members have reacted, mostly agreeing with Dr Smith that details submitted for Building Regulations approval tend to be poor and frequently wholly inadequate. Mr B. Pearlstone, from Billericay, Essex, complains that one applicant asked the checking engineer how to go about the design of an unusual problem. He continues: What I find annoying is that a very large percentage of applicants’ calculations and drawings have no recognisable authorship, no preparer’s name, no signature, no check reference. Do they have PI insurance? Verulam