All articles published in the January 2013 issue.
(NB Technical Guidance Note Level 2, No. 1 contained within this issue was updated in October 2016. For the updated article, see the individual article entry for this issue.)
Publish Date – 12 January 2013
The Institution's 93rd President, Y.K. Cheng, looks back over a 35 year career spent in both North America and Asia, before considering some of the global challenges facing the profession and how the Institution can support individuals and the industry in meeting these challeneges.
This article provides an overview of employer obligations, the various types of PPE and the implications for ongoing PPE training and maintenance.
Sarah Fray reflects on some of the technical activities the Institution undertook during 2012 and introduces her plans for 2013.
This note describes the concept of biaxial bending in columns of any material, as well as the effect direct bending has on column design.
This note focuses on the design of non-composite steel beams to BS EN 1993-1-1 – Eurocode 3: Design of Steel Structures – Part 1-1: General Rules for Buildings. It covers both restrained and unrestrained rolled steel ‘I’ and ‘H’ beam sections.
Admixtures are defined in EN 934-2:2012 as: ‘material added during the mixing process of concrete in a quantity not more than 5% by mass of the cement content of the concrete, to modify the properties of the mix in the fresh and/or hardened state’. This article discusses the reduction of embodied carbon in concrete, that admixtures can provide.
Engineers assessing existing reinforced concrete slabs sometimes use plastic analysis to prove that the slabs are stronger than suggested by simple elastic methods. This approach allows engineers to avoid unnecessary strengthening and replacement work. The ‘yield line’ form of plastic analysis is particularly appealing because its results can be easily understood and checked. However, careless application of the method to complicated real slabs can produce ‘unsafe’ results. Many recent ‘safe’ alternatives are harder to interpret and check. This paper presents a new technique which eliminates the previous disadvantages of yield line analysis to ensure a safe and accurate result, but which remains easy to understand and check. When applied to real structures, the method allows engineers to apply powerful plastic theory whilst remaining confident in their results.
Over the last 30 years it has become standard practice to connect offshore oil and gas structures to their foundation piles using cylindrical shaped grouted connections with shear keys or weld beads. Circumferential shear keys, or weld beads, are provided around the outside of the pile and the inside of the sleeve to give the required capacity. The same methodology is also now being used by the wind energy industry to connect wind turbine support structures to their foundation piles. These structures are subjected to rather severe dynamic loading. It is therefore important to document the fatigue capacity of these grouted connections. As a direct result of this need, a joint industry project focusing on the capacity of cylindrical shaped grouted connections with shear keys was initiated by Det Norske Veritas (DNV) in January 2011 and completed in May 2012. This project has involved fatigue testing of grouted test specimens in the laboratory, finite element analyses and assessment and development of a recommended design methodology. The design methodology includes the Ultimate Limit State and the Fatigue Limit State. Fatigue testing of full scale specimens would require very large test setup and hydraulic actuators. Therefore special box specimens were designed with a representative radial stiff ness similar to that of large diameter connections, with both full size grout thickness and geometry of the shear keys. The design and testing of these specimens is presented in this paper together with the main results from the project.
Cintec’s Managing Director Peter James has been involved in the restoration of some of Egypt’s oldest structures for the past 14 years. He explains why the missing cladding from Cairo’s ancient pyramids may not be down to opportunist thieves after all...
Topics of importance openly discussed...
A profile of the activities and aspirations of a region with a strong academic pedigree and a commitment to engaging younger members.