News in Brief – February 2011

In order to share best practice the BCSA is developing a model purchase specification for steel sections and plate. This specification will include the CE Marking requirements, technical specifications for steel sections and quality management issues. It is anticipated the model specification will be announced at the BCSA’s AGM in July.

Professor Roger Plank has been inaugurated as the 2011 President of the Institution of Structural Engineers. He is both active in research and consultancy work and held several positions as visiting professor and chaired a number of committees for the UK and European steel construction sector. He had a leading role in establishing the internationally renowned structural fire engineering research group.

SCI is continuing to work with the manufacturers of light steel construction products to assess the accuracy of published data, generate new Eurocode-compliant data and, where required, assist the manufacturer to optimise its products in terms of structural efficiency and performance.

AceCad has released in StruCad evolution a new cold rolled purlin and rail system. It has developed several new macros and a component library to facilitate the efficient and accurate detailing of these sections. Graphical User Interfaces have been provided for all of the connection macros. In developing these, AceCad said it has minimised the amount of data and parameters that the user has to change to generate all of the possible connection configurations making the macros simple and quick to use.

FICEP has supplied a Victory 11 CNC drilling line to a leading steel fabrication and welding specialist in Wiltshire. This drilling machine features a small footprint and is capable of counter sinking, tapping, pointing and remote control drilling.