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Strip method design handbook A. Hil lerborg E & FN Spon, October 1996, 302 pp. £39.50 ISBN 0-419-18740-5

Professor Arne ttillerborg is well known within the reinforced concrete comrnunity for his development in the mid-1950s of the strip method of slab design. This meth(xl is a h)wer bound plastic design method which results in a safe design sol- ution. This is in contrast to yield line theory, which is an upper bound plastic method which theoretically results in an unsafe solution and is more suited to the analysis of the load carrying capacity of existing slabs rather than their design.

The original simple strip method is an extremely elegant and simple application of the lower bound theorem, but cannot bc applied to concentrated loads and/or col- umn supports. Although Hillerlx~rg later developed the advanced strip methtxJ to deal with thc latter situations, the advanced method lacked the elegance of the simple method and ninny engineers found it diffi- cult to use. Both methods were covered in llillerborg's 1975 IxxN in English, "Strip Method of Design'. This book aimed to give a rigorous theoretical treatment of the mcthod and Io demonstrate practical appli- cations. However, the latter aim was not entirely achieved. Hence. Hillcrborg has now written the l:xxN under review which, as is apparent from its title, is an appli- cations manual. Ahhough in the new book Hillerborg has extended the advanced strip method to irregular slabs and loading con- ditions, only the minimum required theor- etical background is presented in the first 49 pages of this book of 302 pages. This means that some of the application rules have to be accepted by the reader without justification. However. this fact is acknow- ledged by the author. The remaining approximately 250 pages of the book arc devoted to a wide ranging set of appli- cation examples covering numerous com- binations of loading, slab shape and sup- l'x)rt conditions. Consequently, a designer should be able to find an example which

is very close to the slab which he or she is designing.

In conclusion, this is a well written book for any practising engineer wishing I t ) use the strip method. I/owever. it has to be said that in many countries the regulatory auth- orities would not encourage the explicit use of the strip method.

Professor L. A. Clark

Earthquake-resistant concrete structures George G. Penelis and Andreas J. Kappos E & F Spon, 1997, 572 pp. £65. O0 ISBN 0 419 18720 0

For many years, the classic work by Park and Paulay, "Reinforced Concrete Struc- tures', published in 1975, was the main source of textbook information on the seis- mic design of ctmcretc structures. Recently, however, three new, and in man~ ways complementaO, texts have appeared on this subject I ', of which that by Penclis and Kaplx)s is the most recent. Coming from the very strong (}reek school in the subject, they write from a tirmly European point of view. One of the attractive fea- tures of the book is that it pro\ides an insight into the concrete clauses of lhc ne,a European code, Euro,codc 8 ([i(78~), as well as, in some cases, a critique of them.

The book is aimed at post-graduate stu- dents and practising engineers, as well as final year students specialising in earth- quake engineering. The first 150 pages provide a general review of the principles of earthquake resistant design, covering seismology, dynamic analysis and design principles. These may serve as a useful reminder or introduction to the subject, but it is the remainder of lhe Iw,)ok, concentrat- ing on the seismic bchaviour of reinforced concrete, wherc the main value lies. There is an extensive section on the fundamental properties of reinforced concrete under cyclic loading, and then sections on the design of the principal types of structural elements, including beams, columns. walls, beam-column joints and floor dia-

phragms. Numerical design examples to E('8 are provided. The main emphasis therefore is on European practice, which draws quite strongly on New Zealand methods, but dillers markedly Ironl tile essentially empirical provisions of US codes or the quite distinct practice of Japanese engineers. A ',er) interesting set- tion tolh)ws, reporting on the sei,,mic per- formance of lO-storey huildings designed to it close precursor of I-Cg. as e~,aluated from nonlinear time history analysis.

The next l,ao chapters drav. on the attthors" experience t)f D)st-eurthquake field n]issions in Greece, describing tile nature of tlamage experienced by concrete buildings in past earthquakes, and setting out procedures for enlergcncy post-earth- quake damage inspection and e',aluation. The linal chapters treat repair iuld strength- ening, discussing both design slratcgies and practical techniques. Once again, this is a firmly European view t)l it sub jec l v, here there has also been an cxtcnsi,.c American research effort recently.

The seismic response of concrete strut lures is a highly complex, as well ,ts fasci- nating, subject; the increasing pr~)portion of earthquake damage represented by the failure of concrete buildings makes it a very important one. too. The hook is it ,, er+,.. welcome addition to the literature on the subicct, particularly it] its exposition of the European state-of-the-art in the subject.

Edmund Booth

References

1 Paulay, T. and Priestley, M. J. N. Seis- mic design of reinforced concrete and masonry buildings, Wiley, New York, 1992

2 Booth, E. (ed.), Concrete structures in earthquake regions, Longmans, New York, 1994

3 Eurocode8 (ENV 1998) Design pro- visions for earthquake resistance of structures, Part 1.3.2: Specific rules for concrete buildings, CEN (European Centre for Standard isation) Brussels, 1995

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