Towards more Realistic Structural Evaluation

Potential for catastrophe in building alterations The above topic, raised by Peter Mawer in our column for 20 March, attracted numerous responses, published in the journal for 15 May. Predictably, further correspondence has been received. Mr M. J. Foxton, from St. Helens, Merseyside, writes: The situation described by Mr Mawer will be very familiar to anyone engaged in local authority building control in the appraisal of submissions made for compliance with the requirements of the current Building Regulations and Part A of Schedule 1, in paticular. The local authority will, normally, require, in support, the production of such calculations and details as are necessary to demonstrate structural adequacy, including overall stability. Verulam

A method is presented for the derivation of structural forms for vaults and sails which are to be designed to carry one dominant load case-dead load in the case of a heavy vault or wind load in the case of a sail. A stress function is used to describe the state of stress in the vault or sail. The stress function is derived from the Biot-Savart law used in electromagnetic theory. C.J.K. Williams

The Building Research Establishment, assisted by Bradshaw, Buckton & Tonge, has studied the report prepared by the Inquiry Commissioner (Dan Closkey) on the failure of the ‘Save on foods’ store in Station Square, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. The aim of the work was to determine whether there were any implications from this failure for the recommendations in BS 5950: Part 1. The study has identified some points in the interpretation of the Code which, it is felt, should be highlighted to practising design engineers. D.B. Moore and A.D. Weller