design-in-steel

A new series of training worshops is being held by Thomas Telford Training on the design of steel structures to Eurocode EC3. Dates are as follows:

09 Jun 2009 Birmingham
14 Sep 2009 London
18 Nov 2009 Wilmslow

See the website for details

The Steel Construction Institute seems to think that conversion to the Structural Eurocodes is an inevitability. But has anyone considered the cost to you and me for this transition? And what benefit do we gain from moving to Eurocodes anyway?

Below is a table showing which Eurocode documents will replace BS 5950:1 which covers the majority of general steelwork design. As you can see, the one BS document is replaced by four Eurocodes. And that’s not the only curious difference. For each Eurocode there’s also a National Annex which converts the general European code back into a UK code again. So UK engineers will have to buy a document to convert our way of working into European; and then another document to convert it back to British.

And what do we have to pay for the priviledge of such a convoluted way of working? Over three times as much as before, as you can see from the following graph. The graph shows the cost for BSI members, and guess what? Non members get to pay double.

An unnecessary evil?

The SCI in February brought out the results of their member survey on the adoption of the Eurocodes. Over 75% of respondents said they would only move to Eurocodes “if forced to do so” or never! That’s a very significant majority indeed. And when we consider that the membership of the SCI includes just about every large consultant or contractor involved with steel, it just about amounts to a full scale mutiny against the Eurocodes.

Google SketchUp is being used by companies to design products, manufacture, and even market them through 3D Warehouse. If you haven’t yet looked into this possibility for your products, check out this case study for Steelcase Office Furniture:

Steelcase saves time and money with Google SketchUp