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Queensferry

Module 19

A complete steel building

No new theory. One structure carried from brief to erection, and the thing eighteen separate modules could not show: how the decisions interact.

What this module covers

  • Identify the governing check for each member type, and say why they differ
  • Use the gap between the top two checks to decide what to change
  • Recognise a member that is carrying steel which is not working
  • Trace a decision forward and measure how much of the project it reaches
  • Explain why the decisions that travel furthest are taken with the least information
  • Write a design record that somebody else can actually review

Lessons

  1. Eighteen modules have each taught a check. This lesson puts four members side by side and asks which check actually decides each one — and the answers are all different.

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  2. Which decisions matter most, when they get taken, and how to leave behind something a reviewer can actually disagree with.

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Module checkpoint

Check what you have taken in

5 questions

  1. Question 1

    A member has checks at 88%, 84%, 40% and 22%. What is the gap between the governing check and the next tightest, in percentage points?

  2. Question 2

    A 610×229×113 UB spans 9 m at 30 kN/m. What is the mid-span moment, in kNm?

  3. Question 3

    A 9 m beam has its deflection limited to span/360. What is the limit, in mm?

  4. Question 4

    Module 17 sized a crane girder at 384 kg/m for fatigue where strength alone wanted 123 kg/m. By what factor did fatigue increase the weight?

  5. Question 5

    A decision is taken at the scheme stage — the third of seven — and its consequences reach the connections stage, the sixth. How many stages downstream does it reach?