Horizontal Diaphragm Action in Precast Concrete Floors

Foundations of buildings near trees Dr. Ian Richardson, a biologist with a particular interest in tree/building investigations, has been stimulated, by the contribution of Gordon Rose on this topic in our column for 21 November, to offer his own comments: An engineer friend has shown me correspondence in The Structural Engineer regarding foundations of buildings near trees. As one concerned with many hundreds of subsidence cases involving tree roots each year, particularly when I identify the source of the offending roots, and as coauthor of the book Tree roots and buildings, I would like to comment on a problem underlying Mr Rose’s thoughts. Verulam

Empirical equations based on experimental data and suitable for design office use are presented for estimating the strength of steel fibre-reinforced concrete elements in shear. Illustrative examples and design aids are given. I.Y. Darwish and R. Narayanan