Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations cowski on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Recent content by richardm

  1. richardm

    Timber Beam Design Calcs

    I am always slightly worried when I see this sort of question, because if you can't do it by hand, perhaps you should be speaking to somebody who can. That said ... as your question is posed in metric you might find it instructive to visit www.trada.co.uk, where you will have to register, and...
  2. richardm

    Load Requirements for Catwalks

    You may be (mildly) interested to know that on this side of the Atlantic, the British Standard specifies not a udl but a series of point loads on a cat-walk of 1kN (approx 220lb) at 1m centres.
  3. richardm

    glass design

    The Institution of Structural Engineers (London) has a publication "Structural use of glass in buildings" 1999. This has references to international standards from UK, The Netherlands, Australia, USA, and Canada (including ASTM E1300 as noted above).
  4. richardm

    EXPLOSION DESIGN

    pba Yes - I may not have made my meaning clear - using an equivalent static load is fine if you have the skill to assess it in relation to the dynamic response of the member you are designing. As bridgebuster says, the acceptable level of damage is another component of the calculation. My...
  5. richardm

    EXPLOSION DESIGN

    I fear that both you and your client may be out of your depth, and I would strongly echo the advice from bridgebuster - get hold of somebody who knows about these things. Design of blast-resistant structures is a complicated business and if your client says the effect of a particular blast is...
  6. richardm

    Net Foundation Bearing Pressure

    In the meantime, can I expand on the quote given by bjb in his first contribution of 27 May? I have it on my wall in large letters as: "Engineering is the art of modelling materials we do not wholly understand, into shapes we cannot precisely analyse so as to withstand forces we cannot...
  7. richardm

    collateral load

    Thanks very much Taro - that's just what we needed. Cheers Richard
  8. richardm

    collateral load

    Can somebody please help with a translation from US English to UK English? A colleague is spending this week in the States conducting an independent review of some structures there for a client. We are puzzled by the phrase 'collateral load' in calculations, which is listed in addition to dead...
  9. richardm

    steel to mortar friction coefficient

    Andy Machon above said look at BS 5975 Table 19. (BS for design of falsework) I've just done that and it gives a minimum value of mu for steel on concrete of 0.1 In the past, I have used a value of 0.5 for concrete floor planks restraining the compression flange of steel beams, on the...
  10. richardm

    Can somebody tell me what's the dif

    zhaini Instead of 'potential', might you mean 'tensile'? If so, and you're talking about reinforced concrete, then the main diffeence is this. As Bannu has explained, flexural cracking happens only in the tension zone of a bending member such as a beam, so it only goes maybe half way through...
  11. richardm

    Puddle Clay

    Rooke and Sean, thanks for both your contributions. No, it's not too late because those involved are still scratching their chins, wondering which is the best way forward, and the ponds have been inspected by a geotechnical expert who has a lot of experience. Unfortunately, he is working for...
  12. richardm

    Temporary wind loads

    British Standard BS 6399 Part 2 is probably not much use to you in the US, but just for interest you might like to know that it contains a statistical factor to be applied to short term structures:... "The seasonal factor Ss may be used to reduce the basic wind speed for buildings which are...
  13. richardm

    Eccentric Loads on pad foundations

    That looks right so long as the resultant is in that diamond shape in the middle of the raft which puts it in the middle third on either of the axes i.e.6x/L + 6y/B <1. In other words, the whole of the raft has a positive bearing pressure on the ground. If the resultant is outside the diamond...
  14. richardm

    BEARING PRESSURE

    Blocks are manufactured having a wide range of strengths. Here in UK, the weakest in the code is 2.8N/sq mm (400 psi) and they go up to '35 or greater' N/sq mm (5000 psi). The allowable bearing stress depends on the block strength and the mortar mix you choose, and then you have to consider...
  15. richardm

    Puddle Clay

    Can anyone help? I've asked this question on our own company intranet site, and on the Institution of Civil Engineers (London) forum, but so far, no response. Now, the world! I am looking for guidance on the appropriate use of puddled clay as a pond lining material. Internet information of...

Part and Inventory Search