Consulting Eng

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textbookson he ubject were beingwritten,Scott-Moncrieff, Ketchum, Ewart Andrews, or example, hadled the way, and were followed shortly by Morley, andHusband and Harby, with major works on the theory andthedesignofstructures, o rapplica tion n whatevermaterial was best suited to the job, andwas at that timeavailable.

‘In 1909, the London Building Act, for the first time,permif fed the construction of a fully-framed building, .e.one not merely with internal structural columns, but also

with external columns ; this ed to a rame being builtahead of the walls, thereby giving rise to new problemsof instability, and the need for an engineer’s opinion.

‘So , engineers with an interest n the theory and de-sign of structures sought out a meeting place or anexchange of thought, and found such accommodationwithin heConcrete nstitute,whoseCouncilhad metfor the f irs t time in the itz Hotel in uly 1908. However,the Articles of As so ciation of the ns titute were soonfound co nstricting to the s tructural engineers who hadsupported it, as heywereasmuchconcerned n hedesignofsteel rames as in the des ign of reinforcedconcrete and, by contrast, the s cope of civil engineeringwas far wider than was appropriate.

‘A committee was therefore set up in 1911 to examinethe matter,nd ir enry annerommented asfollows:

“TheCommittee sempowered o akeenergeticsteps to os ter the structural enginee ring side, andthus we see how in future e shall in effectbe not onlyaC oncrete nstitutebutan nstitution of S tructuralEngineers as well. W ith this extended field, in whichpracticallyallourmembers are nterested,and hemajority actively engaged therein, our work should bemuch more valuable and our membership nfluencedaccordingly.”

P rimarily due to the intervention of World War I it was

not until1922 that this was put intoffect.‘The steady growthromhos e days, inacthespectacular growth since World War 1, is proof enoughthat the s tructural engineer fulfils a spec ific function inthe construction industry; one that is today recognisedby Government, by other professions in the industry andby our friend and elder brother, the nstitution of CivilEngineers.

Th e members o f the Inst itut io n

‘Let us now have a l ook at the contents, the spread, ofour present membership.

‘From early days our members have been traditionallyconcerned with the design of s tructures, in a variety ofmaterials; some specialising in concrete, others inteel,but more and more being trained to des ign in whatevermaterial is best suited to the structure inand.‘Isee,therefore,as the hard coreof this Ins titution,the

profess ional designer of structures for building; he isthe reason for the existence of our Institution in theirs:place, and nhis uccess o r failuretseputationrests.

‘But this designer recognises that it is good to have,withinhenstitution, tronglateral upport”romacademics. W e have, therefore, and wisely in my view,admittedntoembershipell-qualifiedesearchworkers,afterastrictreviewof heirpublishedwork,without calling on them to s it our P art 3 examination;whilst sticking rigidly to the rule,.e. the standard of this

examination, we allow the exception to prove the rule,and in fact toetter the Institution.

‘We also welcome men who devote heir career ot each ing , and by so doing we encourage those who are

responsible for the educationf the structural engineersof tomorrow to discus s with the so-called “practisingengineers” the purpose and the effectsf their teaching.

‘My predecessor, your Chairman tonight, has alreadyarguedorcibly, n many ccasions ,orhewiderrecognition of academics by our nstitution, and there-fore it needs no further emphasis from me. But et metake thisopportunity o say howmuch I valuewell-directed research; tmay be sa id that e are spend ing toomuch or too little on research, or that this or that research

organisa tion smoreefficient hananother,butwhatcannot be gainsaid is thatwe would have made pitifullyslow progress in the sophisticationof our designs, or inthe use of new materials, without the guidance of suchresearch leaders as he.

‘Also, we need withinhenstitutionhe pecialknowledge of the constructors and the fabricators, thehandlers ndhe rganisers of modernmechanicalplant, and the makers of structural steel and of precastconcrete; they help us not only to des ign well, but tobuild well.

‘Within the hard core of designers, there are severaldifferentgroups; here are those ncentraland ocalgovernment service, there are those designing for steel-or concrete-makers, or suppliers; thereare others in thedeep end actually build ing as well; and the remainder,maybe themajority, nprivatepracticeofonesort or

another, either as principalso r as ass istants.‘We all in our differentays contribute to the standing

of this Ins titution in the yes of the public; we must be ateam united in our endeavours to make good buildings ;we need to respect one another’s contributions . Buildinghas alwaysbeen difficult:nowadays it i s downrightdangerous, and no longer willny careless attitudes overdesign, detail, or construction, be caught in the old, andgenerous, factor-of-safety net.

‘In my opinion, then, the design f building i s the heartof this Ins titution: of course there are many members,excellent engineers, working o n the design of bridges,

harbours, unnels,masts, adio elescopes ,and evenaircraft; structural engineers without doubt, and P resi-dents past and uture, but it is primarily in respect ofbuild ing that we were founded and that we are held tobe expert, and it is by our success in this field that weare measured. It might not be the most glamorousor themost exciting as pect f engineering, but without doubttis the aison d’&e of our Institution, and itdoes requirefor success the most thorough application in depth, fromthe most elegant mathematical proposition down to thesmallest working detail; t s the necessity for concentra-tion on the technicalities of our work that makes it atthe same time s o absorbing, s o concerning and so satis-fying. A t our peril do we neglect our respons ibilities for“design in depth”.

‘The majority f our members,then,earn their livelihoodin private practices, either as principals or as assistantengineers,andonourCouncil I believe that hepro-portion is about 50 per cent consulting engineers, Thisbrings me to my main theme-the evolution during thelife of this nstitution of theprofess ion of theCon-sulting S tructural Engineer and his present standing nthe construction industry.

Th e development of the profession

‘Let us go back to 1911, when in our journal itwas said:

“C ompetition n reinforced concrete work has nowproceeded to inordinate lengths,andtwould seem that

we have obtained the chief advantage to be derivedfrom competition in design, and that steps should betaken to put some limit to it. T o effect this, designersmust be placed more n the pos ition of consultants,

460 THE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER 0 ECEMBER 1969 No 12 0 OLUME 47



and not so closely associated with contracting firmsashashithertobeen he case,and mustremain s o

unless he wo hings can be dissociated.Thedis-appearanceofpatent oyaltiesand licenceswillnodoubt facilitate the change.”

‘The As soc iation of Consulting E ngineerswas formedin 1913. At that time there was no real definition of theterm “consulting engineer”, and neither clients, nor theprofessional engineers themselves, knew with any cer-tainty what his duties really were. They had, of course,existed or manyyears-some of hemost llustriousnames in engineering history had worked in this way-butconsultingandcontractingworkhadbeenmixedtogether, to the detriment of both.

‘Their duties were then defined as follows :

“A person possess ing the necessary qualificationsto practise in one or more of the various branches ofengineering,whodevoteshimself toadvisinghepubliconengineering matters, or odesigningandsupervising heconstruction ofengineeringworks;and for such purposes occupies and employs his ownoffice and staff, and is no t directly or ndirectly con-cerned or nterested n commercial or manufacturinginterests such as would tend to influence his exercise

of independent professional judgment in the mattersupon which he advises.”

It is well to be reminded from time to time of that de-finition.’

‘By 1919 we see established some whose names arewell known to us today in continuing s tructural practices,such as Faber, Hurst, Deane, Andrews , C. W . Glover,Mouchel, and Bylander, who was, I believe, the designerof he irs t ully-framedbuilding nLondon, he RitzHotel.

‘But in 1922 itwas said by a prominent memberof ourCouncil:

“At the moment the consulting engineer as hardlythe equisiteprofess ional tatusor tanding.The

mere fact thatitshould not be regarded as an insultoask him to collect his fee from the contractor s anindication that such is thease.”

‘Generally speaking, until at eas t 1929, engineers inprivate practicehad small staffs consisting f indenturedpupils plus a few ass istants, and they gave advice; theywere concerned much more with basic principles thanwith endless working drawings. They might well decidethe appropriate safe working stress inhatever material,anddetermine he sizes of hemainmembers;someeven had their own column ormula or piling ormula;they would make a few typical working details, and pro-nounce upon the strength of the bolted or site-rivetedjoints or-what is nowa problem but then was s imple-the shear value of a reinforced concrete beam!

‘These pioneers made up their minds and gave theiropinions, orwhich heyaccepted esponsibility but,because they were opinions and not tangled up with theduties of the contractor to construct, they were almostunchallengeable in law,and indemnity nsurance washardly thought of, andseldomclaimedupon.For n-stance, in 1930 Ewart Andrews ’ insurance was for €5000,at a premium of €5.

‘They were, however, esolutelypracticalmenwhomade most certain that their theories orked, and, oftenentirely their wnpersonal expense, arried outoriginal tests and research on materials and structuralelements.

‘It is during thesedecades , 1919-39, that we find mem-

bers of the Institution playing a leading part in the writingof Reports, which were the forerunners of our presentCodes of P ractice. Whatevere maynow think about thisor that Code, or the irrelevance or restrictiveness f any

particular clause, we cannot deny that our pre-war fore-bears gave us a fine example in their dedication to thecause of s tructural “good practice”.

‘In this ame period-when themajority of the membersof our Institutionwere employed as designers with steelfabricators, loorspecialists, einforcedconcretesub-contractors reinforcement suppliers-we ee theemergenceofhe ons ulting tructuralengineer asadviser to the architect in the designf his buildings.

‘As the number of independent consulting engineers

grew, hey gradually came to be more nvolved n thedetail design, which for steelwork had no great pitfallsexcept for the tiresome checking of workshop details;but, in venturing into the design of reinforced concreteframes, which could be built by the general contractor,they became saddled, albeit for a greater fee, with theproduction of full working details and, worse still, barbendingschedules.Theengineer hereby ookuponhimself the duties of technician, and drewear to tellingthe contractor not only what to do but, in great detail,ho w to do it, That wasabravestep, but brought ondifficultiesand egalentanglements we now can see,even if we cannot quite understand them.

‘After the1939-45 war we ind further emphasis on this

change, not so much n he statusof heconsultingengineer, but in thenature of his work; by now he is nolonger only the adviser and the designer; he is also thedetailer. However, we cannot put back the clock, evenif we wanted to; rather, we must accept that good de-tailing is part and parcelof good design;itmust be donewell, it must be made clear, it must be checked and it

must be enforced.‘Themodern tructuraldesigner is herefore very

stretched; on the one hand t is vitally important that hekeeps abreast of the latest developmentsn design tech-niques,newmaterials, etc., but on the other hand hecannot, in my opinion, evade his great responsibilitiesin the preparation of good working details. I am ndeedconcerned that, in our proper determination to seek out

new advances in technology, we do not make this ourso le aim.

‘Technology is not enough:by itself itdoes not makean engineer; its mastery has always been, and ill alwaysbe, the ess ential ingredient in theake-up of a practisingstructural engineer, but in my opinion there is a dangerthat, inour eaching and inour raining,and nouranxiety not to be thought f as technicians, we may tendto become “too clever by half”; I think there may be agulf growing between the designer and the constructor-and this was not always so.

T h e t e c h n o lo g i s t‘For hepast 50 years, with hegrowth of structuralengineering as a profession, separate from architectureand romcivilengineering, hestructuraldesigner, nwhatevermaterial,hasbeen raditionallyastrong inkbetween the architect and the builder; quite apart fromhis obvious and important responsibilities, of finding astable and economical solution to the plans set beforehim, he has acted as nterpreter and translator, so thatthe architect’s intentions can e understood, and can besafely built.

‘The success of the s tructural engineer in this field fcommunication has been primarily due to his trainingand/or experience in building cons truction;y his under-standing of the builders’ difficulties, earned n patienthours of site visits, underarying conditions of wind and

weather, discus sing, arguing, nstructing, istening, by,with or from, the contractor’sgent, the steelerector, theconcrete foreman, the bar fixer, etc.

‘Of course, I know that we no longer live in the building

THE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER 0 ECEMBER 1969 0 No 12 0 VOLUME 47 469



world of the 1930s, or even the ?950s, but on the eve ofthe slick sophis ticated 970s; we are rightlydes igningourstructures to utilise better materials to betterdvantage,i.e. all members, andallpartsof eachmember, fullystressed; compos ite action between loors and beamsand walls; plastic flow; the philosophy of several limitstates, etc., and hearithmetic of suchdesign easedby the mathematicians’ tool, the computer. All this sexcellent; and it is good for business , for no architectcan any longer proceed safely without us (although I am

no t entirely sure thathe is always safe with us!).‘And to cope with this modern sophis ticated design,our university lecturersre delighted to set a syllabus thatwill test the four-“A”-Level undergraduate to hismathe-matical limit, to produce a graduate capable of analys ingthe stresses in a multi-storey rigid frame underny condi-tionof oad ing; his s excellent, it i s right,and it isinevitably part of progress.

‘Thisyoung man, rightly eeling very proudofhisengineering degree, or entry to CE I, in his mind is eadyt o make the alcula tionshimselfor Sydney OperaHouse, or the Eiffel Tower, or to acts R esident Engineeron an mportant building site. But whils t he will rightlycons ider himself a potenf ial technologis t, he will at hisperil gnore the practical application which follows the

theory. At this very important stage inhis career heshould humble himselfso that he will learn from, amongothers , the experienced technician, along whose s ide heshould be, and not in aseparate compartment.

‘Now that we chartered engineers are all to e labelledTechnologists we must ensure thatwe do notallowagapto occur between “us” and “them”; I have been broughtup all my life among engineers whose reputation, apartfrom sound structural theory, has been based upon thefacility to communicate in a language of common sensewith the builder. I sens e that this may no longer be thecase between the ultra-modern engineer and the build-ing contractor.

’For instance, the computer may be a lead into good

design, but it needs experience and good technique tointerpret its message to the cons tructor, and thus makethe technologyeffective.

‘In the height of hiseminence, Lo rd R utherford said-“If a scientist cannot xp la in , to the charwoman, whateis doing, he does not now what he is doing”.

‘The preparation of working drawings i s a demonstra-tion that the designing engineer knows whate is doing,and s his prime method of communication to the con-structor; itmay be that these drawingsre generally pre-pared by the technician , but beware the designer whohimself, at some time or another, has not prepared suchdrawings.

‘The consulting engineer has a duty to his profession tobe more than a good designerf s tructural elements; he

must see the whole structure, rom ts overall designdown to its smallest detail; whether e sees itor not, heis responsible for its adequacy; respons ible not only tohimself and to hi s client, but to the general public, forafter all every job has s ome social s ignificance.‘I am convinced that, unles s within the mind and the

experience of the modern structuralengineer there is anunderstanding, and a recognition of the value and theimportance, of the technicalities of our work, we mayweaken the ink of mutual confidence and respect withthebuilder,and hegulf between designerandcon-structor will widen, and may prove disastrous.

‘Although this a ttitude of mind might well come w ithtime and experience, it i s important to consider that thefirst directions should be given during theearly years ofeducation and training.

‘The young potential structural engineer willecessar-ily not only have received a sound general education,

but will also, to qualify for the es sential graduatetatus,have achieved an academic standardhigher,ormorespecialised, than ever before:his“Mathematics”and“Analys is of S tructures” will be particularly “out of thisworld”. Now, whilst I fully agree that in the universitiesour profess ors must forever be probing unknowns, andseeking ever more elegant so lutions o hestructuralproblems that lie before us, and whilst I accept that thepresent-day graduate will be twice as good at theory asmy generation at their age, I am a ittle concerned that

such a high standard is being pressurised into all youngmen who opt for engineering t age 18: I would prefer tosee only 25 per cent, say, being selected for this “high-level” treatment,and heremaining 75 per centbeinggiven a rather wider ours e:ornstance, whereastoday’sgraduate anwith onfidence analyse omestrange unlikely shape (which might be use ful for, sayIanoccasiona l exhibition structure), he is often, I find, n-capable of making calculations for a simple structure, orwors e still he fails to distinguis h between strength andstability.‘I do ,fully appreciate the importance f, and indeed the

necessity for, thevery best academic standards, to copewith the increasingly complex structures we are design-ing, and the problems et by the “invention” of new and

better materials, and by the demand for higher and widerand yet moreeconomicalbuildings;butine, sharpprecision-instruments cannot al l be used to solve bluntproblems, and, in my opinion, many young graduateshave been given an academic education for which theywere not entirely suited n he first place, and hen,havingstruggled hrough it, they are disappointed ofind that their “high falutin”’ mathematical theory is notbeing used.

‘I am sure we can all agree that instruction and study,however wellconducted,can never of itself make anengineer;nor can scholastic success , or ts lack, betaken as proof that one man will make a good engineerand another will not. Experience on the site and n the

drawing-office, and ability to pro fit by the human con-tacts they bring, are equally necessary and important.‘Therefore, we mus t at leas t encourage the graduate to

accept,as soon as possible ollowinghis universityyears, a period of training, during which he will have theopportunity to acquire a feeling for the fundamentals ofour ob: hisbasic raininghas beendelineated in arecent report by an A d Hoc Committeeof the Institution;I hope that it will be incorporated before long in our re-quirements for membership, and that we will take it as

our duty to see that it is implemented.‘I think there s a danger that young engineers may

never learn hese undamentals f theydo not learnthem n their firs t few years after eaving college; andmaybe it is very tempting for them to evade these tasks

which, in their pride at having attained an engineeringdegree, they may think are beneath them, and un-necessary.

‘In the so-called “good old days” this kind of trainingwas “pickedup” by the unio r n he office-be hearticled pupil or junior draughtsman;t largely dependedon his own initiative,nd to a esser extent on the attitudeof the employeras to the progress he made. We arenow tohave as itwere a Codeof P ractice for T raining forthe oung raduate;his houldepresent oodminimum standard, which it will be our responsibility tomaintain;but as inother imes, I have no doubt hatthe initiative of the trainee will be the principal factor inhis progress .

Structural engineering technicians

‘From now onwards all members of the Ins titution are tobe pure-bloodedechnologists.Whathen of the

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technicians? So long as the structural engineer is re-sponsible for completion of his design he will be em-ploying, as ofnecessity, aproportion of his staffastechnicians.

‘Thenstitution’solicy cane summarised asfollows:

“The S tructural Engineering T echnician must haveabasic academic standardofHNC , ollowed by atleas t two years’ training and experience, culminatingin the passing of our Technician Test: he will then be

awarded thenstitution’structural EngineeringTechnician Certificate and with it, it is anticipated, willqualify ormembership ofeitherof theTechnicianSocieties, i.e. SCE T or SA A T .”

‘We need the echnicians and thereforemust en-courage young men, who for one reason or another arenot suited to pursue a university course, to study andwork pos itively oraworthwhile career, that has astatus which is recognised and acknowledged, by all inthe world of building and civil engineering, as being avital part of the process: not a “failedBSc”, but a holderof the S tructural Engineers T echnician Certificate. If indue time,as we might expect, thenumber of suchqualified echniciansgrows, it may be hat we can

properly house them within the compass of our Institu-tion as a non-corporate grade, or Associate-Member. I

cannot myself feel entirely satisfied that the technician,whosedesire it is oworkwithqualified tructuralengineers, will be content to belong to a Societyeither,on the one hand, of architects or, on the other hand, ofcivil engineers. W e are a specialist Institution, foundedout of necessity, and it is right hat we should makeourselves responsible for the standards and training ofour kindred technic ians, without hom, one mightargue,nothing can be built.

‘If we do ot undertake thisesponsibilityon-sc ientiously, we may find that we are left as pure de-signers , and if that situation were ever to come about,then I hink itwould lead to bad structural design, and a

negation of what this Ins titution has stood for since itsfoundation.

‘In thisage of space exploration, itis perhaps temptingto think that the sc ientist by himself can achieve almostall that his brain conceives; the recent lunar landing is ina sense evidence that this s so. A nd yet of course ithas been the result of a team effort between scientist,technologist and technician:only hescientistcouldencompass in his mind the wholeenterprise, and yet hemust appreciate, and have some understanding of, thevital part that is played by his technologists; so in turn,the technologist cannot sensibly orafely be ignorantof,or lack sympathy for, the superbwork of the technicians.Each has a proper pride in h is own achievement, and,

more mportantly,apride n he achievement of hewhole team.

Building legislation and Codes f Practice

‘I would ikenow o ecord my thoughts n regard tobuildingegislation and Codes of ractice, as theyaffect the consultingengineer.

‘Not since the Great F ire of London have we had anentire “free-for-a ll” in building, and no one would reallywish those carefree days back again; however, we are insome danger now of going the other way, and of therequirements being so delineated that, rather than usingthe Codes as guide-lines and as limiting factors, we aretempted to use thems obstacles, the game being to getthecontractbuiltwith as littleconfrontationwith he

local uthority as possible, nd ometimeso seehow well we can “get round” what, in some clause, wemay regard as particularty restrictive. In defining what is

“goodpractice” in great detail, we tend o cloud hedesigner’srimaryesponsibility:f making thosedecisionsthat in the limit affect fundamentals of strengthor, more importantly, of stability.

‘Thisnstitutionhas alwaysplayed n ctive ndresponsible part n the writing of the so-called ‘struc-tural” C odes of P ractice, and of writing R eports whichhave very often after due trial formed the foundation ofnew Codes of P ractice; in 1968 the responsibilities ofconvening the structural codes were handed over to theBSI, but of course the members of the espective Com-

mittees, who in their skill and wisdom draft the clauseswhich n effect become building egislation, are for themost part members of this Ins titution-thus we continueto have an important and an influential part toplay.

‘None of us likes too much legislation, and engineers inparticulardislikebeing nstructed n oomuchdetailwhat to do; especially, if there has not been ample timefor discussion andargument, about the matters in and.

‘A s I am sure other P residents have done before, I

have read a number of past P residential Address es, andexcellent reading they make: on the subject of buildinglegislation, I am sure ohn Faber willnotmind myquoting his illustrious father: I quote Oscar Faber 1935:

“It has been suggested that bye-laws and codes of

practice relating to building, should be brought up-to-date annually. I wonder whether it is appreciated thatthe press ure on the typing pools n the Governmentofices concerned, would make a ittle matter of thissort about as difficult as landing on the moon; not,of course, imposs ible, but most demanding. However,this Institution has done a great deal and will do evenmore in the uture, to ensure that we work to sens iblestandards , and that these will be reviewed as often asmay be reasonable.

“It is the responsibility of the individual ngineer tomake sure, that f a problem arises which cannot bedealt withna reasonable way withoutnfringingexisting egulations,he houldhimself,or in par-

ticularly important cases of general nterest, with thebacking o f the Ins titution, approach those in authoritywith hat measure of echnicalskilland diplomacy,whichs necessary to achieve permission to actlogically, if not strictly in accordance with the letter ofthe law. It is, o f course, extremely important that theobject in view should be an entirely rational one; andin some cases, in o rder to avoid eally dangerous pre-cedents, some measure of compromise may have tobe agreed. O n he whole, thanks to heStructuralEngineer’s great increase of knowledge and authorityduring the past 30 years, much better administrativemachinery now enables him to put forwardnew tech-niques wherever these can be justified.”

‘At thepresent time the aim is toevise the structuralCodes every fouryears ; n my opinion his softenenough, and I think it is only on very rare occasions thatthere is any need for hasty amendment; if ever there issuch need, aris ing out of, for example, a building failure,then I cons ider hat any interim nstruction o oca lauthorities should be stated in the briefest and broadestterms, to be followed by moredetailed clauses, pro-perly discus sed with plenty of time, and which, in duecourse,canbe written ntoa evisionof an existingCode.

‘The Codes,however carefullywrittenand howeverstrictly enforced, can never be expected to copewithevery eventuality, nd theprimeesponsibilitiesor

making a building stand up to the stresses and s trainsof cons truction and of occupation are with the owner,his professional advisers, and the builder; and not with

Wise words from a wiseman.

THETRUCTURALNGlNEER 0 ECEMBER 1969 0 o 12 0 OLUME 47 471



the Government, or this Institution, or leastf all with theauthors of the Codes of P ractice.‘Itoccurs tome that designers would be happy to work

to a set of rules in this form:

1. A Building Regulation which says:“The building must s tand up.”

2. Code f ractice “ A “ that ivesdeemed-to-satisfy” clauses n air detail, but allows an inde-pendent qualified structural engineer a measure offreedom.

3. Code of P ractice “ B ” that gives very detailed com-pulsory rules, for others.

‘In C entral London cons ider thatwe are fortunate thatbuilding legislation is administeredy Dis trict Surveyors,first appointed in 667 following, and because f, the F ireof ondon,and defined as “discreetandntelligentpersons ”; their rulings have been the subject of argu-ment,uzzlement o r downrightisagreement,utalways they have been held in respect, never more sothan now. For the most part they are members of ourInstitution, whereas n days gone by they were usuallyarchitects: this, of course, is a reflection of the legisla-tion itself, and of the acceptance of structural Codes ofP ractice; we have had some part, too, in the examiningofotentialDistrict urveyors,whosennualest

covers a wide field of building knowledge-and i s evenmore notorious than our P art 3 examination in that thefailure rate is about90 per cent!

‘TheDistrictSurveyordevoteshis ull ime o headministration of building law; in my view it is desirablethat throughout the country there should be a somewhatsimilarservice, inwhich heBuildingSurveyorhasameasureof ndependenceof he ocalcounciland i s

qualifiedbyexamination.Thereare imes, ofcourse,when one thinks it a bit of an impertinence that someother ellow wants to check detailed calculations anddrawings, and wants to interfere by making unheraldedsite nspections, but on the whole it is no bad thing tohave the disc ipline of a “second opinion”.

‘We mus t have the rules to be able to play the game;even among the best of sports and gentlemen there sneed for an umpire;and n his reecountry of oursanyone is a llowed to play, whether he knows the rulesor not-and building s a much more dangerous gamethan cricket!

‘Outside London, in a few of the big cities the enforce-ment of building legislation is handled in a similar wayto central London, and the designers are called upon tosubmit their calculations and drawings for approval, .e.a certificate only is no t acceptable.

‘Thiswholematter satpresentunderdiscussionbetweenhenstitutions fCivilEngineers nd ofMunicipalEngineersandourselves,and it would begood to see a uniformity of approach throughout the

country.‘I would wish that we more often had a Building S ur-veyor on o u r Council, and we are always glad to havetheir views expressed when we are preparing InstitutionReports such as,forinstance, the current oneon “Stabilityof Modern Buildings”. I think itwould do us good to askthe District S urveyors As sociation or the Institution ofMunicipal Engineers to make,say, a biennial Addressto us, containing a summary of the good and the badthings they were inding in both des ign and cons truction;we for our part might have the opportunity to return thecompliment.

The struc tural engineer’s responsibil ities

‘At a meeting of the Ins titution, in J anuary 1968, we dis-cussed “The Responsibility of the Structural Engineer”;I should like to summarise what said at that time, and

then enlarge on the matter:what I said was as follows:

“Whether our egal riends saywe areparty to acontract or not,wehave a duty to ensure hat ourdes ign is safe. In my opinion, we also have a duty tocommunicate hecons titution of ourdesign o hebuilder, in such clear terms that he for his part canallocatewith confidencewhatevermoney,materialsandmanpower may benecessary toconstruct hebuilding safely.

“Wemus t make our ntention clear,beyondanyargument, ingood“0”-Level English, when we in-struct the builder, and he then becomes respons iblefor the safe construction of the building.

“It may be that we have no contract with the builder,but there is no future fors, ontract or no contract, ifstructures fail, for whatever reason.”

‘Tosum up, I believe that we are respons ible ordesign,and or hecommunication of thatdesign. Ibelieve thatmod failures have been due not to bad de-sign, but to the failure to communicate our ntentionsand requirements to the restf the build ing eam.

‘The Consulting Engineer must make up his mind: fhe s only there to be consulted, hen he can remainaloofbehindhisacademicbarrier;but fhe s o berespons ible for the structural detail and/or the super-vision, and moreover is to be aid for this, then he mustat eastunderstandwhat it isallabout,and he mustunderstand the difficulties and recognise the skill notonly of the technicians within his own office but also ofthe builder, firstly n nterpreting the drawings with alltheir modern short cuts and standardisation jargon nd,secondly, in carrying out the nstructions via drawingsand specification, underwhatever conditions ofweather,labour troubles, transport difficulties, tc.

‘As Dr. Husband llustrated to us n his P residentialAddress, fyou haveanexpertknowledge,andpar-ticularly f you express that expertise n an instructionas to what should or should not be done, then, if sub-sequently things go wrong, the law can g o hardly or

you. I would like to quote from a book, that has nothingwhatsoever todowithstructuralengineering,and swritten in fact by a B ishop, but which I think is neverthe-less apposite:

“ As long as we are ignorant, nothing is asked of us,but as soon as we know anything, we are answerablefor the use wemake of that knowledge; we are e-sponsible for any particle of truth we have acquired,and have to take it into account in our behaviour.”‘A nd further, eiteratingwhat was so well aidby

“the more we are able to make our influence felt, it isinevitable we take on greater responsibility,”

Dr. Husband:

and

“themoreesponsibilitywithwhich wemay beentrusted, the higher our status will be . . . and themore we may expect to be paid”.

‘Aris ing too o ut of a higher status is the kind of col-lective responsibility which as individua ls we find veryhard to bear: for instance, ollowing heRonanPointtroubles , we s tructural engineers felt very aggrieved atany suggestion of being held collectively responsible forsomethingwhich, ndividually, wewerequitecertaincould never have happened asa resultof a design underourowncontrol;and ollowing his we resentedanysugges tion of the imposition of new rules on which wefelt we hadhad nsufficientopportunity ocomment.However, if we engineers as a profession are seekingmore prestige in the eyes of the public we mus t at thesame time be prepared to accept criticism, although notlevelled at us as individuals.

472 THE STRUCTURAL E N G M E R 0 ECEMBER 1969 0 o 12 0 OLUME 47



point of view of public appreciation; but because mostengineers are notorious ly shy of “public relations”, thelatter does not necessarily follow the former.

‘There is o oubt, however, thathetructuralengineer, whether he be consultant, contractor, publicservant or administrator, carries out day after day, yearafter year, with the utmost care and diligence, and withcomplete safety, an enormousand real responsibilityinhe ons truction of thousands of buildings andbridges, both at home andoverseas: for this there is littlepublicity.F or he rare failure,and they are very rare,

there is frightening publicity; we can take comfort fromthe fact that t is because it is so rare that it is news.

‘I see, then, the major role f the C ons ulting S tructuralEngineer in he 70s beinghe ontinuedpursuit ofelusive excellence in design; to help ourse lves n thistask we must:

( a ) strengthen he weakened link between designer

(6 ) value our technicians; and

(c) exercise our duty of care for our ne ighbour-in-law.

‘Thus we will enhance the prestige of our profession,and of our Institution.

‘Inconclusion, I must say a ewwordsabout hework and the importance f our Branches, and Sections,both at home and overseas. It is well known that it isonly on as suming high office in the Institution that onebecomes fully aware that the standards of conduct, ofprofessionalntegrity, as well as ofechnologicalexpertise, are upheld with enthusiasm and with dignity,not only throughout the UK and Eire, but also in So uthand E ast Africa, Nigeria, New Zealand, S ingapore and

and builder;Institutionnotescon t inued f rom page 466

Wood, ndustrial Liaison Officer, Depart-

ment of Civil and Structural Engineering,

University f Sheffield, Mappin Street,

Sheffield.

A one-week courseof ectureson he

non-destructive testing of materials

is to take place on the new Uxbridge site

of BrunelUniversityrom 20-24 April

1970. On 22 April all members of

theCoursewillparticipate na one-day

Conferenceon Modern rends nultra-

sonic esting’whichwill be held at the

University and is being organised ointlyby the Acoustics Groupof the Institute of

Physics and the Physical Societyand the

Non-Destructive Testing Society ofGreat

Britain. The Course fee of 35 guineas will

cover the cost ofextbooks, lecture notes,

refreshments and luncheon on each day,

a Course Dinner and the Conference fee.

Limitedesidentialccommodation at

reasonable charges will be available. All

furtherdetails are available from Mr. J.

Blitz,epartmentfhysics,runel

University, Woodlands Avenue, London,

w3.

Th e University of Salford is running a

number of courses of interest to struc-turalngineersncludingheHigh

strength steel as reinforcement in

Malaya andHongKong, and inallparts of theworldwhere our members live and work.

‘Structural ngineeringsundamental nd vitallynecessary to modern civilisation; but it has to be goodengineering-nothing lesshanhats accceptable,indeednothing ess han hat s safe; it is mportant,therefore, that whatever standards we set for our mem-bers, hey must be universal standards of the highestintegrity, recognised throughout the world as the hall-mark of sound design. I am confident that these stan-dards will continue tobe upheld by our members, where-

ever they are, and I hope that shall have the opportunityto see for myself that this is o .

‘It is he ns titution’spolicy hat wherever nationalengineering nstitutions can make adequate provisionfor the encouragement, by meetings and discussions, ofthe art and sc ience of the structura l engineer, then wefor our part would not wish to form a Branchf our own,preferring to communicatehroughhe stablishednational nstitution oour members. Th is,our “over-seas policy”, ssometimesa ittledifficult o gaugesitting here in London, and for this reason it has beencustomary, from time to time, for the P resident to makean overseas tou r; Iam honoured tobe the first P residentto have been invited by the C ounc il to visit India , the arEast and Australasia during my year of office; needlessto say, I shall be delighted to make such a tour on yourbehalf, and I ook forward withgreat pleasure to meetingmany new friends and seeing for myself the manner inwhich our good reputation is beingupheld.

’Finally, may l add a few, very sincere, words of thanksto the staff of the Institution: under the superb leader-ship of Mr. Morgan, no C ounc il cou ld be better served,no P resident made more “at home”.’

reinforced nd re-stressedtructures’ I(six evening lectures: 10 February to

17 March 1970); ‘Urban renewal 1970’

(twodays: 25 and 26 J une 1970); and

‘Limit State Design’ and ‘Prestressed

Concrete’ (each course to ast one day:dates to be announced later). Further

details of these and other courses may be

obtained from the Registrar, Room l I I J ,

the University of Salford, MS 4 W T .

Representation

The Council have appointed the following

Institution Representatives:

Cement and Concrete Asso c ia t ion, Tra in ing

Consul ta t i ve Commi t tee :BSI Code of Prac t i ce Commi t tee for Bu i ld-

ings BLCPI - :

BSI Technical Commit tee-Retaining Sfruc-

Dr. D. D. Matthews (F).

Dr. A. R. Collins (F).

t u res (Farms) FMBIB :B SIechnica lommit tee-Standard

C lauses n T imber Spec i f i cat ions T lB115:

BSI Industry Standards Commit tee-Agg re-

gates, NaturalS t onean dQuarryP roduc t s ,

STBI -: B SI Technica l Com mi t tee- -Cement

C E B I 1 :

B SIec hn i c a lom m i t t ee -M e t hods of

Tes t ing Conc rete CEBI4 :Prof. A. M. Neville (F).

Ewel lo u n t yec hn i c a lo l l egeo n -

s t ruc tura l Engineer ing and Survey ing Adv i - ’

sory Commi t tee :Ewel lCounty echnica lCol legeGenera l

Mr. R. S. Burbage (F).

Mr. C. E. Cannons (F).

Mr. M. Wilson (M).

Mr. Kenneth Severn (Fj.

Bui ld ing Adv isory Commi t tee:

Gui ld fordechnical Col lege-Bui lding

Adv isory Commi t tee :

BSI Technical Comm it tee-Clay Bricks andBlocks CLBI7:

B SIechnica lommit tee-Quant i t ies,

Uni t s and Symbols USM I1 :

Regional Counc i l f o r Fur ther Educat ion for

th e South-West-Sub-Commit tee for the

Cons t ruc t ian Indus t ry:

Lo nd m Jo in t Com mi t tee o f Graduate and

Student Engineers :

North Wes t Regional Adv isory Counc i l f o r

Further Educat ion-Jaint Advisory Co m -

mit tee for Educat ion inheu i l d i ng

Indus t ry :N orw i c hi t yo l lege-Mechanica ln -

g ineer ing Adv isory Commi t tees :Mr. 0. ithgow (F).

BSI Technica l Comm i t tee, Quant i t ies , Uni t s

and Symbols USMI1 :Prof. A. H. Chilver (M).

BSI Div is iona l Cou nc i l :

E. N. Underwood (F).

M i n i s t r y o f P ub l i c B u i l d i ng and W ork s S ub -

Commi t tee on key publ i cat ionsonmet r i c

bibl iography :Mr. R. Rosser, Assistant Secretary

(Technical).

Ipswich iv ic ol lege-Coun ci l for En-

g ineer ing :

Mr. R.P. Haines (F) .

Mr. C. H. Hockley (F).

Mr. L. R. Eves (M).

Dr. K. 0. Kemp (M).

Mr. C. E. Saunders (F).

Mr. W . Ellis (AM).

Mr. B . 0. Allwood (F).

Mr. S. E. Meggitt (rf).

Cont inued on page 499

474 THE STRUCTURALENGINEER 0 ECEMBER1969 U No 12 n VOLUME 47

Consulting Eng

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