Eurocode-related books

[Tony Bryer]

The first release of EuroBeam is hopefully not too far away. In the meantime, if you need to get up to speed with Eurocodes you can find a comprehensive list of books at http://www.eurobeam.co.uk/eurobooks.htm - everything from the [relatively] simple to the downright scary!

[Robert Lye]

Tis all scarey!

Our firm has been instructed to work on EC's for all new projects from end of april and exclusively from Oct this year.

Hurry up with Eurobeam (with all the extras) or I may have revert to a calc pad! :confused:

By the way the Draycott/Bulman book is fairly easy to understand and it won't take long for Arya to update fully.

Rob

[Tony Bryer]

I'm hoping - not just for commercial reasons - that LAs don't push people into using Eurocodes for no particular reason. No one suggests that BS5268 and BS5950 deliver unsafe structures, and if there is a criticism of BS449 (as applied to domestic scale structures), it's that it leads to overdesign when compared with BS5950.

Forcing people to use codes they don't understand is unwise at best, potentially dangerous at worst. I'm checking my work against the worked examples in the various books listed, and so far have found one error in each of three of the books. One esteemed contributor to the Verulam column in Structural Engineer, March 2 says

"... Interpretation is greatly hindered by the academically pretentious format (partly in Greek) guaranteed to induce brain fatigue in practical engineers. Having perhaps overcome the 'presentation barrier' there are many anomalies and questions ..."

Too true, especially when it comes to steel and lateral torsional buckling. Nice tables with C1 values for UDLs and central point loads, glib notes stating that the beam is assumed to be laterally supported at both ends, but try and decide how a loft conversion beam with far from uniform loads just packed up at one end should be handled and you're on your own ... except for the one book author who helpfully suggests applying BS5950 design rules!

Back around 1976 when I was a junior BCO with an interest in structures I went to a course on the then new BS5628 masonry code. At the first tea break I said to one of the other attendees in the tea queue, "this is OK for engineers like you, but it's all going over my head". Quick as a flash he replied "What makes you thing we understand it; this is the academics getting their own back on the practising!".

One book that won't be on my web site list for a few months is Designers' guide to Eurocode 1: Actions on buildings EN 1991-1-1 and -1-3 to -1-7 - I ordered and paid for it in April 2003 - it's just turned up at my old office in Twickenham! And this time next week we're all assumed to have a fluent understanding of Eurocodes.

[Tony Bryer]

I've just discovered this via Google: Design of Structural Connections to Eurocode 3: Frequently Asked Questions. It was published in 2003 so pre-dates the definitive EC3-1-1 and EC3-1-8 but it appears to contain a good bit of useful and readable information. And it's free!

http://www.e-konstrukcije.si/user_files/vsebina/Informacije/DESIGN_OF_STRUCTURAL_CONNECTIONS_TO%20_EUROCODE_3. pdf