News
National Annexes being written
Work has started on writing the National Annexes to the steel Eurocodes by a team from the BCSA, Steel Construction Institute and Corus .
The National Annexes will provide steel designers with the additional information they need to make the new Eurocodes work in a UK context. David Moore, the BCSA’s Director of Engineering says: “The National Annexes won’t be large documents. And they are not there to explain or interpret the Eurocodes.”
What they contain, he explains, are “nationally determined parameters” and “non-conflicting complimentary information”.
Nationally determined parameters are those for which each EU country takes responsibility – such as safety. So the National Annexes will contain safety factors, as well as other parameters on which the 18 EU countries that developed the Eurocodes could not agree.
Non-conflicting complimentary information is also essential for UK designers, as Dr Moore explains: “In certain cases the Eurocodes don’t give you all the information you need. We want to give engineers that information, so the National Annexes will give references of where to get this information.”
Dr Moore’s team is working on the five parts of Eurocode 3 and two of Eurocode 4 that have so far been published. These cover rules for strength of members, fire resistance, connections, fatigue strength and brittle fracture. The team has until early 2007 to complete the work, after which there will be a three year period of “co-existence” before the British Standards must be withdrawn.