All articles published in the April 2012 issue.
Publish Date – 1 April 2012
The recently completed New Engineering Building (NEB) at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) is a new state of the art academic facility on the university’s north campus. The building unites all five engineering disciplines within the university and at 14,250m² is now the largest engineering school in Ireland. It represents a milestone in the construction of engineering educational facilities by incorporating the use of numerous types of sensors to create an interactive learning environment for engineering students. Not only will it be a centre of education, but the building itself will act as a ‘living laboratory’ and teaching tool. This paper outlines the instrumentation of the structural elements within the building and the part they will play in the teaching and understanding of structural engineering within the university.
The Drapers’ Gardens redevelopment, completed in 2011, involved the construction of an office building in the Bank Conservation Area within the City of London. The confined city site and the ground conditions presented a number of challenges. The site activities commenced with the demolition of the existing 100m high tower structure. At the time it was the tallest office structure to be demolished in the UK. The perimeter support of the substructure was designed to minimise internal propping. The piled foundations re-used a substantial number from the existing piled raft. Archaeological investigations uncovered an extensive area of preserved Roman development and water channels. The building obtained an excellent BREEAM rating which influenced the services and façade design. This led to demands on the structural design. The steel framed structure above ground is a distinctive stepped form rising to 15 storeys with spans up to 15m to satisfy the developer’s desire for column-free spaces. The staircases on the south façade are a visible feature. Close working within the multi-disciplinary design team and with the main contractor ensured this complex project was efficiently completed.
This articles shows why both criminal and civil law is relevant to the management of health and safety risks in construction.
Why report to CROSS? Alastair Soane, Director of Structural-Safety.org urges more engineers to engage with the programme, dispelling some reporting myths and highlighting the community-wide benefits of submitting concerns.
This note concerns lateral loads that are applied to barriers, and wheel axle loads from vehicles.
There has been recent increased use of earth for construction of buildings in developed countries, largely because of concerns with the environmental impact and embodied carbon from fired bricks and cement-based products. Of all forms of earth construction, the widest impact on modern construction is likely to come from commercially produced unfired earth masonry where large-scale production can significantly reduce costs. While there are benefits to using earth masonry, structural design with earth masonry raises some specific issues that are not necessarily relevant to other forms of masonry construction. This paper summarises these issues and presents results of extensive structural testing on modern earth masonry. The structural properties required for design are compared with typical values for other masonry types in Eurocode 6, showing that commercially produced earth masonry can meet or even exceed the structural capacity of other commonly used masonry systems.
Kevin Lea, BIM Business Development Manager at CSC, provides a personal view on what BIM really means to the structural engineer and whether Structural BIM is being used to its full potential.
A 3rd edition of Gimsing and Georgakis book was released in January 2012. Buro Happold’s Davood Liaghat takes a look…
Topics of importance openly discussed...
Covering a vast geographical area hasn't prevented the Caribbean group from working towards common goals...