Examiners' Reports. Membership (Part 3) and Associate -Membership Examinations, April 1990)

Steel connections - who should design them? We have had a number of responses to this subject, as raised in our column on 16 October. Mr J. Renshaw, of Sale, Cheshire, strongly endorses some of the points that were made: Mr R. E. Densley has raised a question of great importance which, if not considered in depth, can cause many problems on a contract. Verulam

The results of a pilot series of tests, designed to investigate the influence of the presence of a composite floor slab on the performance of steel beam-to-column connections, are reported. Direct comparisons against equivalent bare steel tests show improvements in moment capacity (up to 15 times), with reinforcement anchorage being the main controlling factor. Thus joints to internal columns where the deck runs parallel to the beams and relatively small numbers of bars supplement the basic mesh reinforcement may be expected to give the best performance. J.B. Davison, D. Lam and Professor D.A. Nethercot

During the structural restoration of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, repairs have been carried out to the stone-clad minarets. Dynamic testing and load testing of the minarets has been carried out, together with a detailed survey of construction, to form a historical record and to help in the assessment of the long-term behaviour of the minarets. In October 1987, winds of hurricane strength caused the temporary scaffold roof to move more than had been allowed for, so that it impacted against the building. The damage was widespread and included damage to several minarets. This paper describes the minarets and how they were damaged, assessed, and repaired. K.R. Midwinter and J. Holden