Pan-European project will enable engineers to work across borders

A number of European institutions are currently collaborating in project EURING, which will help structural engineers to design buildings in other countries by familiarising them with the various national annexes connected to the new Structural Eurocodes, EC1, EC3 and EC4.

Ed Yandzio, SCI Principal Engineer, said although these Eurocodes will soon be mandatory documents, designs will not be standardised.

“Each country has a set of National Annexes which must be used when designing in that particular country. This initiative aims to equip engineers with the necessary information to produce a design for a steel building in other European countries, using their National Annexes.”

In order for engineers to produce a design in another country they need to familiarise themselves with that nation’s, sometimes unique, National Annexes and NCCI’s.

In addition, engineers will need to be aware of that country’s national regulations, other mandatory documents required for design and that country’s design practises.

For example, a multi-storey framed building in the UK would generally be designed as pin jointed with a composite floor, whereas in Hungary the frame is more likely to be idealised as rigid or semi rigid. Or, a typical bay size for a building in Belgium may be quite different to general practice in Slovakia.

Project Manager Sue Armstrong of Sheffield University, said the project partners have re-designed an existing steel-framed multi- storey building to comply with the National Annexes of all the countries participating in this project.

“From doing this work we have now compiled a list of national differences which will be published next year.”

The project partners are: Univer- sity of Sheffield, SCI and Epistemics (UK); Fachgebiet Stahlbau TU Darm- stadt (Germany); Centre Information Acier (Belgium); Technical Chamber of Greece; Fundacion Universidad de Oviedo (Spain); University of Pecs (Hungary); and University of Tech- nology Bratislava (Slovakia).

Project Euring is partly supported by the Leonardo Da Vinci programme.