Serviceability Performance of Timber Floors

B8 8002 Earth-retaining structures Stephen McKechnie has written from Bristol, expressing concern about an apparent muddle in the use of ultimate limit states and serviceability states. He says: I have used the new earth-retaining structures Code twice and went through Mr Akroyd’s paper in The Structural Engineer of November last year, but something still bothers me about his approach to serviceability, and ultimate, limit states.

Timber is the unique structural material, fully renewable, lightweight, and potentially very efficient. It possesses many environmentally positive attributes, the maximisation of which involves the entire forestry and timber utilisation chain. Further improvements in the use of timber as a renewable resource present a considerable challenge. However, this is a rewarding task, vital to the economies of all the northern European countries, including the UK's. A research and innovation strategy is now firmly established, and this entails collaboration, involving industry, Government, and other partnerships such as those formed within the European Commission Framework Programmes. C.J. Mettem and S.B. Tietz

Timber is not yet used to its best effect in design in this country. This may, in part, be due to a lack of education on its very real benefits among students and also to historic limitations which no longer apply. M.W. Milner and R.J. Bainbridge