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The Structural Engineer, Volume 66, Issue 16, 1988
Storm damage In our June column, John Mayne, of the Building Research Station, argued against the validity of Mr L. Metter ’s thesis, contained in our March column, that the survival of structures designed to the I952 wind Code had shown the I972 Code to be ‘both onerous and incorrect’. Dr. Mayne quoted the ‘regular crop of damage to cladding and fixings occurring with every wind stronger than the most moderate’ as vindicating the pressures given in the 1972 Code. Mr Adrian Warburton now describes his experience in assessing the reasons for failure due to the storm of last October: After a night of lost sleep, and without communication until midday of Friday 16 October, it was with some trepidation that I returned to work. However, in the following (busy) weeks my surveys of damaged structures were interesting but, frankly, disappointing. While I was sympathetic with owners, problems were invariably the result of mechanical damage or of some glaring construction weakness, caused by either faulty workmanship or lack of maintenance. Verulam
The fire resistance of composite deck slabs is presented in terms of their loadcarrying capacity, integrity, and thermal insulation. It is shown that 90 min fire resistance can be achieved with mesh reinforcement in the slab, provided the slab and reinforcement are continuous over a number of supports and imposed loads do not exceed 6.7 kN/m2. This was demonstrated by large-scale tests, and a summary of available UK test data is made. In other cases of design, the fire engineering method may be used. This takes account of the reduced strength of the elements in fire. G.M.E. Cooke, R.M. Lawson and G.M. Newman
Many low-rise steel frames are designed in practice on the basis of plastic theory. This factor is recognised by the purveyors of computer software, and programs for the plastic analysis and design of plane frames are proliferating. There are evident advantages in offering elastic-plastic analysis as an item on the menu, and some packages on the market now do this. However, there is a fundamental problem in elastic-plastic analysis of which the profession should be aware. The writer, and no doubt other readers of The Structural Engineer, would be interested to know whether any of the programs that are currently on commerical offer incorporate a solution. The problem in question concerns the ‘false mechanism’. Professor J.M. Davies