All the articles published in the January 2016 issue.
Publish Date – 4 January 2016
In this article, Phil Burge of SKF (U.K.) Ltd describes how sophisticated bearings systems are helping to keep a variety of cutting-edge civil and structural engineering projects in working order: whether it’s adjusting an enormous telescope, ensuring that a church bell keeps ringing, or moving the immense doors on an aircraft hangar, each comes with a challenge of its own.
A tuned damping solution was developed to mitigate walking induced vibration of joist-framed floors in 25 rectangular, trapezoidal and irregular-shaped rooms in an educational facility. The make-up of the floors was concrete on metal deck, supported by open-web steel bar joists. The floors came in various sizes (800–1200sq.ft) and shapes, with the first resonant frequencies in the 6.5–7.5Hz range.
Following the measurement of vibration and finite element analysis of the floors, 50 tuned mass dampers (TMDs) (two for each room) were designed, manufactured and installed to effectively address the vibration challenges of the first structural modes of the floors they were designed for.
After installation of the TMDs, the effectiveness of the tuned damping solution was evaluated via further measurements. TMDs effectively dampened the first structural modes of the floors in various rooms and lowered their walking-induced vibration to acceptable levels.
This article illustrates how structural timber fared at the Grade II listed Dunston Staiths in northeast England.
This short article describes the rehabilitation of an office building in Baghdad damaged by a missile strike during the 2003 Iraq War. The author briefly sets out the damage to the building’s steel frame, explains how a structural model was created to enable the design of a supporting steel frame, and describes the installation of the temporary supporting frame and new steel columns using hydraulic jacks to raise the building’s upper stories.
A new series from insurance broker Griffiths & Armour on professional indemnity claims begins by advising engineers on what requires notification to their insurer.
All excavation work is potentially hazardous; the collapse of excavation faces can have serious consequences, both for life and purely as an economic loss.
Understanding the dynamic response of a structure or structural element can be a daunting task, particularly for practising engineers normally only concerned with the static design of structures. Many structural engineers will be familiar with the dynamic response of simple single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) models. However, very few structures will correspond directly to such a form, which usually means computerised solutions are embarked upon, structures are radically altered, possibly needlessly, or problems passed to dynamics specialists.
This paper simplifies the analysis to provide arithmetic solutions and a means of understanding the dynamic response of a structure. It also provides a means to verify computer modelling and estimate the characteristics (mass, stiffness and damping) of a TMD to address any residual problematic dynamic response. This enables the design provision for the additional weight attached to the structure and the required space, if a TMD is deemed to be necessary. A worked example of a simply supported welded steel box girder footbridge is presented.
This new technical guide provides a useful source of cost data for pricing concrete bridges – particularly formwork and falsework – explains Matthew Myerscough, who has trialled it himself on a recent project.
This book provides a valuable snapshot of the recent state-of-the-art in this important field, says John Bungey, and will be useful to students, researchers and forward-thinking practising engineers alike.
Chris Shaw finds this to be a well-presented and useful book, but one that is let down by a series of omissions which he would like to see addressed in the next edition.
Letters this month raise concerns about the the forces cited in an article published in May 2015 on assessing the capacity of the Grand Parade stone balustrade in Bath, UK; as well as considering structural safety margins and code discrepancies in relation to steel web buckling.
Upcoming events at Institution HQ and across its regional groups.
In this section we shine a spotlight on papers recently published in Structures – the Research Journal of The Institution of Structural Engineers.
Structures is a collaboration between the Institution and Elsevier, publishing internationally-leading research across the full breadth of structural engineering which will benefit from wide readership by academics and practitioners.
Access to Structures is free to Institution members (excluding Student members) as one of their membership benefits, with access provided via the “My account” section of the Institution website. The journal is available online at: www.journals.elsevier.com/structures
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