Shear Strength Within Reinforced Concrete Beam-Column Joints

Building regulations control Several members have written about diferent aspects of such control. Ian Anderson has written at length, drawing on his experience of checking calculations. Working for the local authority he found that authorities in his neighbourhood varied very considerably in their capabilities and staff numbers, with budgets often inadequate. Problem areas include calculations, often prepared by inexperienced persons who rely on the local authority to identify possible errors. Basic concepts are too frequently ignored. Loft conversions are often carried out with little awareness that the walls being removed also assist overall stability and, in the case of terraces, the last house in the terrace may require framing to avoid creating a mechanism. Steel beams were often assumed to have their top flange fully restrained without any connections to the supported pool; and floors are assumed to provide diaphragm action without any supporting evidence. Too frequently single members are calculated with no assessment of the interaction of a structure in total. Walls are taken on trust with no wind calculations provided and even tall boundary walls are frequently left unchecked. Mr Anderson continues: The subject of design certificates came up as a solution to minimise costs of checking, but the problems of professional indemnity insurance and quality assurance have yet to be ironed out both for designers submitting calcs and for the local authority who takes responsibility for approval. Verulam

Mr P. Harris (F) (G. Maunsell & Partners Ltd) An aspect of the development that did not receive much attention in the presentation is crowd safety. Could the authors say to what extent this design consideration featured in the development and planning of the three new stands?

A linear partial interaction analysis is applied to determine the deflections at midspan of simply supported composite beams with partial shear connection under dlfSerent cases of loading. The results are presented in a general form and so arranged that these deflections are defined as a ratio of the corresponding deflections of the equivalent fully composite beams. It is found that such an arrangement leads to expressions which have the same numerical values. Consequently, a general design chart is constructed which facilitates the determination of the central deflections of simply supported composite beams with partial shear connection. This chart can be used irrespective of variations in the type of loading, beam geometry or material properties. N. Abdulrazzaq and A.A. Mohammed Ali