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A reporter was called upon to review a design for the removal of a loadbearing wall during the refurbishment of a residence. A builder was already on site but had stopped work since they considered the engineering design to be unsatisfactory and the structural designer was not responding to their queries. The reporter found that the structural design being followed was far from competent.

As part of their final design submission, a cladding subcontractor changed the connection strategy for their cladding system. The project structural engineer did not identify the design change and the cladding loading resulted in excessive deflection and some twisting of the primary perimeter steel.

This report concerns designs for simple steel beams submitted to building control bodies under Part A of the Building Regulations. The reporter, a checking engineer for a building control body, was not able to accept the effective length and restraints assumed in a number of submitted designs. Most originated from individuals who used proprietary structural design computer packages without, i...

Metal framing and plasterboard was used to provide lateral stability to a building. The form of construction was later deemed to be unsuitable and extensive remedial works had to be carried out.

A room with walls of traditional cavity and single skin masonry was lined with plywood and used for storage of wood chips. No thought was given to the lateral pressure on the walls which eventually failed.

During a site visit, the permanent works design engineer noticed that hydro-demolition of the end of a floor supporting beam had taken place out of sequence. This introduced a pattern of bending moments and shear forces that were not considered in the original design.

This is a technical note from a reporter about the methods their firm uses for punching shear design because there was concern about punching shear design spreadsheets possibly leading to potentially unsafe situations. .

An existing large shopping centre built circa 1975 had a number of external storerooms and loading bays with roofs constructed using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) planks. The planks had deflected to the extent that they needed replacing.