asev & ffsv newsletter · researching screw piles for reactive soils jointly by asev, ffsv,...

ACSEV NEWS ISSUE 196

Association of Consulting Structural Engineers Victoria (Reg No: A0026069J) www.acsev.org.au Foundation and Footing Society Victoria (Reg No:A0025791G) www.footingsgroup.org

2018|August|Issue 196

NEWSLETTER

ACSEV & FFSV

Inside this issue

President’s messages…………………p2/4

Review of masonry workshop….p6/12

Technical Article…………………. p15/16

Brown Report……………………………..p21

NEWS • ACSEV/FFSV Joint technical seminar on 15.08.2018

•FFSV launches new webpage

• ACSEV Annual General Meeting on 17th October at Box Hill Golf Club

•ACSEV is working with Universi-ties to finalize student award

New masonry code released in 2018 has increased the capacity of grouted reinforced ma-

sonry based on the recent research conducted at Queensland University of Technology

(QUT). Professor Manika Dhanasekar from QUT presented the new provisions in the code

during the recently concluded masonry workshop along with other masonry industry repre-

sentatives. ACSEV and Swinburne University jointly organised the workshop which was par-

ticipated by consulting engineers from all over Victoria. More details on code changes are

included in the technical article on page15/16.

New Masonry Code AS 3700 –2018 increases capacity of grouted masonry

Join ACSEV and earn your CPD. A perfect place for peer networking and improving practice knowledge.

8 evening seminars, 1 site visit, and a workshop in an year presented by experts from industry and academia.

NEW MEMBERS WELCOME Please contact membership officer Francis Hsieh (9561 9431) for more details.

Membership form can be downloaded from http://www.acsev.org.au/images/signup_form.pdf

Monthly meetings at Box Hill Golf Club every third Wednesday

http://www.acsev.org.au/images/signup_form.pdf

2017-2018

President: Karl Apted

Vice President: Brad Little

Treasurer: Jenny Norrish

Secretary: Anthony Leily

Past-President Richard Eckhuas

Membership Officer: Francis Hsieh

General Committee:

Keith Allilomou

Biju Balakrishnan

Russel Brown

Malcolm Cuthbert

Len Dalziel

Robert Nestic

Minhtri Nguyen

David Lyon

Richard Rees

Part-time/Country: Richard Fooks

Philip Vawdrey

President’s Message

Dear Association members,

Thank you to those who attended the Mason-

ry Workshop in June. The workshop was well

attended and very informative. Thank you to

Jenny Norrish for her efforts with organising

the event.

For the last couple of years, the Committee

has been looking at the future of ACSEV and

has set up a sub committee to review how we

are operating as an Association and make

recommendations to the Committee for

changes if required. The sub committee has

come up with suggestions (we have even

implemented some, including card payments

at meetings and events), now it is time for the

membership to do so.

I encourage all members of our Association

to contact the Committee and Office Bearers

with any questions, issues, concerns, or even

comments on how we are running the Associ-

ation on your behalf. Any suggestions or com-

ments as to how you would like to see the

Association operate are sought. Please send

to [email protected].

We will review and get back to the mem-

bership with any recommendations.

The Committee is also there to help you

with any issues you may have. Networking

and informal mentoring offered by ACSEV

members and the Committee can be of enor-

mous benefit. If you do not know or have

concerns about elements of the profession or

design queries, additional feedback can be of

enormous benefit. There is an extensive

amount of knowledge and experience in our

Association that can be accessed, just ask.

Committee members are always willing to

offer their advice.

Apart from arranging our site meetings,

presentations, workshops, and the Annual

dinner, the Association’s role also includes

peers support and submissions that affect the

profession.

Some issues that relate to our Association’s

role have come up recently that have had, or

will have, major impacts on our members.

1. Victorian Building Authority – Certificates

of Compliance

The new Building Regulations that came

into effect 2nd June have adopted new for-

mats for the certificates. These are available

on the VBA website at:http:/

www.vba.vic.gov.au/practitioners/resources

under Building Practitioner Resources, Forms,

Approved Forms

We have had a number of queries as to filling

in of these forms.

We have received the following advice from

the VBA:

Areas marked with asterix on approved

forms are noted as able to be deleted where

so marked and where the design / inspection

is not relevant to these areas. This means that

many areas eg. storeys, height etc can be

removed. Also, the section on Performance

Solutions needs to be filled in if you are de-

signing using non referenced codes or solu-

tions in the NCC etc.

Description of works to define design and

inspection works can be added to the Building

Work inspected (for Building Works Certifi-

cate) or to Nature of Proposed Building Work

(for Proposed Building Works Certificate)

Inspection certificates (Certificate of Com-

pliance - Building Works) can only be issued

by a Registered Building Practitioner who has

performed the inspection. You cannot rely on

photographs or another person’s inspection.

2. The Engineers Registration Bill 2018 be-

fore Parliament - Update

The ACSEV Committee has responded to

the Victorian Government regarding this act

regarding the many concerns as to the need

and intended operation of this proposed leg-

islation.

This is the largest change to our profession

in Victoria since the Building Act 1993. The

changes in 1993 were considered mostly ben-

eficial to the practicing engineers, these pro-

posed changes do not appear so.

Karl Apted

[email protected]


Association of Consulting Structural Engineers Victoria (ACSEV) www.acsev.org.au

“ Networking and in-formal mentoring offered by ACSEV members and the Committee can be of enormous benefit”

http://www.vba.vic.gov.au/practitioners/resources

http://www.vba.vic.gov.au/practitioners/resources

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.acsev.org.au

From the Editor

We have been quite successful in

securing annual sponsors for the joint

newsletter. Some of the relevant

articles from the sponsors will be

published in the coming editions. All

care has been taken to include prod-

ucts that are relevant to practicing

engineers/practitioners and proven

their usability in the market. The

members shall make their on assess-

ments before using any of the prod-

ucts advertised in the newsletter as

ACSEV/FFSV doesn't guarantee pur-

pose, utility or performance.

Please write to us about the articles

published and we would like to hear

from you. All previous newsletters

are available in ACSEV website and

please download and keep a copy as

most newsletters will have some

important information relevant to

practice.

President’s Message-contd Correspondence to and from the Govern-

ment, the Act and Explanatory Memorandum

are available on the ACSEV website, refer

http://www.acsev.org.au/document.php.

The Bill has been approved by the Legisla-

tive Assembly and has been listed a number

of times to go before the Legislative Council.

We have again raised our concerns with

the Bill and put these to Members of Parlia-

ment. All communications on this matter has

been uploaded in ACSEV website.

It appears the Government is not yet confi-

dent they have the numbers to pass the Bill in

the Legislative Council, as the Bill has not

been listed for debate as yet.

We note that there is a concerted effort by

Professionals Australia, Engineers Australia,

and the Institute of Public Works Engineers

Australia to support this legislation.

ACSEV does not oppose the principle of

registration of engineers but has concerns as

to how the registration is implemented, tran-

sitioned from the VBA, and its affect on engi-

neers (especially already registered engineers

under the Victorian Building Act).

Most importantly ACSEV has concerns as to

the lack of consultation with the profession

and what appears a lack of understanding as

to what the actual Bill entails.

Engineers should consider what the Bill is

actually asking, we encourage all members to

review the Bill and voice their own opinions.

The Bill is available for download on the

website at: http://www.acsev.org.au/images/

document/67_1.pdf

Please contact the Committee for further

information (or even if only to tell us what we

are doing wrong). The next meeting in August

will be a joint meeting with the Foundations

and Footings Society Victoria. See the flyer,

which will be sent shortly, for further details.

I look forward to seeing members at our

meetings.

Regards,

Karl Apted


Association of Consulting Structural Engineers Victoria (ACSEV) www.acsev.org.au

ACSEV-FFSV JOINT TECHNICAL MEETING Wednesday 15th August 2018

Venue: Box Hill Golf Club (202 Station Street, Box Hill, Vic. Melway 61-D3)

Compliance to NCC, verification of performance solutions Prof Lam Pham, Swinburne University of Technology

Latest developments in the proposed revision of AS 2870 Steve Buratto from Buratt Consulting & Patrick Irwin from Irwin Structures

Researching screw piles for reactive soils jointly by ACSEV, FFSV, Swinburne and Victoria University Luke Tymensen from HardCore Geotech with Russell Brown from R.I. Brown

MEETING PROGRAM

6.00 pm Pre Dinner Drinks

6.30 pm Dinner

7.30 pm General Business

7.45pm Presentation

9.30pm Close

PAYMENTS:

Via EFT: To: FFSV BSB: 083 343

Account No: 51896 1148

• Please Quote your name in the

Payment Reference.

• Receipt of payment should be returned

along with RSVP to

[email protected]

Via CHEQUE or CASH: Payment can be made on

BOOK YOUR SEATS IN ADVANCE!!

NUMBERS ARE LIMITED BEING A

JOINT MEETING

http://www.acsev.org.au/document.php

http://www.acsev.org.au/images/document/67_1.pdf

http://www.acsev.org.au/images/document/67_1.pdf

http://www.acsev.org.au

2017-2018

Chairman: Luke Tymensen

Vice Chairman: Steve Burratto

Secretary: John Southwell

Treasurer: Francis Hsieh

Asst Treasurer: Ramon Leoncio

General Committee:

Simon Anderson

Russell Brown

Scott Emmett

Tim Gibney

Andre Merheb

Xavier Smolders

David Tuaine

Philip Vawdrey

Bernie Weberuss

“ The FFSV new webpage is now up and running. This will be where all de-tails regarding meetings and field days will be”

Chairperson’s message

Dear Members,

Since the last newsletter we have had a Gen-

eral Meeting on the Wednesday 11th July at

Box Hill Golf Club. We had a presentation

from Dominic Lopes about his PHD regarding

a simple test to check for suctions and highly

reactive CLAY soils. We also had a short

presentation from Steve Buratto about the

meeting that was held in Sydney regarding the

possible review / changes to AS2870-2011.

After this there was an open discussion about

where FFSV should focus their attention on

regarding changes to AS2870 that the mem-

bers would like to see. The meeting was well

attended with over 100 people.

To start the open discussion about

changes to AS2870 at the meeting I raised my

opinions on the matter. It was made clear in

the meeting at Sydney that the only way to

make changes to AS2870 is if a business case

can be made that there will an economic ben-

efit to society. Although we are all aware the

issues with movement of houses is very ex-

pensive it may be difficult to produce a busi-

ness case that is successful. The option availa-

ble to FFSV is that we can look at some key

points in AS2870 and improve on the detail.

Examples of this would be guidance on fill

works, how drainage is to be installed and

what is a failure.

If these three points could be expanded

so that if a design is to use AS2870 then the

drainage and fill works must be completed

with the procedure outlined in AS2870. This

would then allow us to have the fill and drain-

age works completed properly. We would

also have some terminology on what is to be

expected with the performance of a footing

system and to outline what a “failure” is.

I believe that if we can have this infor-

mation added to AS2870 then a large propor-

tion of the issues that we all face would be

addressed.

This is to be further discussed at com-

mittee level and with other interested parties

such as ACSEV, AGS and HEDRA. Further re-

porting on these issues will be supplied in

future newsletters and meetings.

FFSV is also looking at completing a research

project with some University involvement on

a screw pile supported waffle slab. A site is

currently being negotiated for with one of the

Universities where there are highly reactive

soils. The idea is to fill the site with dry over

compacted highly reactive CLAY soils. Screw

piles will then be used to support the waffle

slab. The fill soils will then be saturated and

using monitors the pressure exerted on the

underside of the slab will be measured to

check if the waffle slab does not heave off the

screw piles. If successful, then this will give

our industry an alternative solution on how to

handle sites with high “Ys” values, tree issues

and plumbing leaks.

Further information regarding this project

will be given in future newsletters and at the

upcoming joint meeting.

The FFSV new webpage is now up and run-

ning. I along with a few other committee

members will be attending a workshop in the

near future on how to manage the infor-

mation that is on the webpage. This will be

where all details regarding meetings and field

days will be. Information from previous semi-

nars will also be added so that members can

access it.

The next FFSV meeting is the combined

meeting with ACSEV. The speakers will be a

representative from Swinburne to talk about

the Steel Handbook. Steve Buratto will also

talk about what defines a failure. Patrick Ir-

win will also talk about how AS2870 handles

performance and failures. Finally, Russell

Brown and I will give some further details on

what the screw pile waffle slab research will

entail.

See you all at the next meeting on Wednesday

15th August, 2018.

Sincerely,

Luke Tymensen


Foundation and Footing Society of Victoria (FFSV) www.footingsgroup.org

Luke Tymensen

[email protected]

http://www.footingsgroup.org


BECOMING A FOUNDATION AND FOOTING SOCIETY MEMBER

The Foundation and Footings Society of Victoria was formed in 1991. The association grew of an initial informal meeting in

July 1991 of engineers, engineering geologists and technicians involved in the geotechnical assessment of building sites. The

society provides regular meetings with excellent speakers three to four times a year including a joint meeting with ACSEV.

These meetings do attract up 100 practitioners and colleagues created a great environment to share knowledge and advance

your professionalism. The society also funds research into soils and structures that sit on them and has membership levels

ranging from full corporate membership to student membership and our aim is to achieve registration with VBA a reality.

……………R.Brown


Foundation and Footing Society of Victoria (FFSV) www.footingsgroup.org

Aims of Foundation and Footing Society • Promote a higher standard of geotechnical investigation for low rise industrial, commercial and residential buildings.

• Develop an appropriate site investigation code for new constructions, repairs and/or similar re the above buildings.

• Exchange technical information with all related professionals.

• Conduct regular meetings, including excursions and seminars between ourselves and specially related professionals.

• Seek to gain input into relevant codes and Australian building standards relating to the industry.

• Ensure that the members of the organisation or association be well vetted.

• To encourage affiliate membership amongst related professional groups and/or organisations.

http://www.footingsgroup.org


MASONRY WORKSHOP SEMINAR 6th JUNE 2018

Innovations in Masonry Prof.Manika Dhanasekar, Queensland University of Technology

Professor Manika Dhanasekar, who as a child fascinated by the beauty of time tested historic mason-

ry construction, had focussed all his energy and resources to masonry research for most part of his ca-

reer. His presentation was indeed an eye opener to most of the engineers as many of us are strong advo-

cates of concrete or steel whereas masonry still being used widely as a cost-effective construction meth-

od. Actually 90% of the house construction uses masonry. Due to the research at QUT, the new masonry

code AS 3700-2018 uses less conservative load factors which help the engineers to design much eco-

nomical cross sections. Even though we all use reinforcement in masonry, we were constrained to use its

yield strength for calculating axial capacity as the confinement of vertical steel is difficult to achieve to AS

3700-2011. The worse, we were forced to use 0.5 capacity reduction factor even for reinforced masonry. Definitely, theory was not

working in our favour. Not any more, the new research at QUT under the leadership of Professor Dhanasekar, proved beyond

doubt that no benefit provided by laterally restraining the steel via ties as per AS 3700-2011. The contribution of the grout to the

overall compressive capacity of wall was significantly higher than suggested by AS 3700(2011). The magnitude of the contribution

provided by the grout increased with higher grout strengths. The strength of the grout is currently limited to 1.3 times strength of

the masonry unit, yet grout strength of up to 3 times higher than that of the masonry were used in the testing without any adversi-

ty in results.

From all these testing and subsequent analysis, which was supported by CMMA, equation 8.5 of AS 3700(2011) has been amend-

ed in the new masonry code.

A clear example of organised industry representatives partnering with universities for using advanced research and testing for

bringing up to date knowledge to engineering practice areas. Well done CMMA and QUT.

…………..Editor

Fixing in masonry, how to select the right fastener? Dr.Tilak Pokharel & Dr.Jessey Ley, AEFAC

Dr. Tilak & Dr. Jessey of AEFAC, presented various fixings in Masonry. The Australian Engineered Fasteners and Anchor Council

(AEFAC) is an industry initiative seeking to enhance the specification, selection, design and installation of structural anchors and

fasteners in the Australian construction industry. AEFAC has already prepared a technical note for fasteners (Standards Australia

Technical Specification 101:2015 “Design of post-installed and cast-in fastenings for use in concrete”) which is already included in

NCC 2016 to give same legal status as any Australian Standard. Now engineers who are designing and specifying anchors have

more responsibility and they should be using only prequalified products ( fit for purpose) and they would have to demonstrate the

capacity through a proper design. Installation also plays a major part as much of the capacity could be easily lost simply by poor

installation.

Selection of fixing mainly depends on the base material suitability and be conscious of the fact that anchor fails, in most cases,

by the failure of base material. Tilak presented position rules for anchors in masonry which is quite useful for practicing engineers.

Avoid mortar joints, away from edges of brick, avoid adjacent bricks, away from edge unit of wall, if you want to make it work,

rules are many. Please watch out for the new Australian Standard AS5216:2018 which will supersede SATS 101.205.

AEFAC has produced many technical notes on anchors which may be downloaded from http://www.aefac.org.au/

resources.php. Very useful presentation with some very interesting developments in the fastening industry. Thanks to Prof.Gad

and Swinburne University for helping ACSEV to organise this workshop seminar.

……………….Editor



http://www.aefac.org.au/resources.php

http://www.aefac.org.au/resources.php

AS 3700-2018 What is new? Michael Koungras, Austral Masonry

Michael Kongras, a technical member of Concrete Masonry Association of Australia (CMMA), presented

various retaining wall systems including segmental retaining wall. The main focus of the presentation was

AS 4678 which is not normally used for residential construction unless you design a retaining wall. A simple

block work retaining wall design becomes complicated as you need to refer to three codes to prepare an

NCC compliant design, AS 3700 for block work, AS 3600 for concrete base and AS 4678 for retaining wall

loading. Gravity retaining wall construction using No Fines Concrete (NFC) was interesting as it eliminates

the use of steel and works fine if you do the math right, which means controlling the major failure modes,

overturning, sliding, bearing and global slip. Michael concluded this presentation with a worked-out exam-

ple of a 1.6m high segmental retaining wall.

CMMA has prepared manuals for design and construction of masonry structures which is quite useful for practicing engineers.

The technical manuals may be down loaded from http://www.cmaa.com.au/technical.

………………..Editor



http://www.cmaa.com.au/technical

SUBMISSIONS WANTED FEATURE PROJECT ADVERTISING FEATURES TECHNICAL ARTICLES Do you have a response for our newsletter? Acsev newsletter is made possible by member generated content We need your submission Can you help?

Submit all content to [email protected] Submission is acceptance that the contributor is responsible for all submitted content and is authorised to allow ACSEV to publish.

Reinforced Masonry-Wall design for compression, in plane and out of plane shear and bending Arlene Nardone & Wayne Holt, Adbri Masonry

This presentation covered AS 3700 updates and the new provisions in the 2018 edition. The main changes are the new equation

for the reinforced masonry, changes to capacity reduction factors to grouted block work and provision for stack bonded masonry

design. Even though the change from 0.5 to 0.6 is not a lot for grouted masonry, this at least demonstrates the need for using ap-

propriate capacity factors based on research. It is worthwhile to note the robustness provision the code, according to which, walls

shall be proportioned to resist and ultimate uniformly distributed out-of-plane load of 0.5KPa. Arlene demonstrated through an

example that if you design an unreinforced 200 series block work wall, 4m high, would easily fail in robustness check.

Wane Holt presented the design of a basement masonry wall of a three-storey building taking the participants through every

step of the calculation. This was very useful as one could easily translate this knowledge for solving their design issues in practice.

Those who are designing reinforced masonry, please keep at least 2 times diameter (of the reinforcement) as gap between block

work to get the full strength of reinforced masonry.

A well-prepared presentation which clearly demonstrated the provisions of the new code through a real design problem. Well

done presenters.

……….Editor




Unreinforced masonry compression design Jake Ring, CMMA, Think Brick Australia

Jake Ring representing CMMA, Think Brick Australia and Australian Roofing Tile Association presented various methods to design

unreinforced masonry. He proved through calculations that a 2.7m high unreinforced fully grouted block work wall using 200 series

block has a capacity of 710KN/m. But keep in mind the robustness clause where you need to check the design for a lateral load of

0.5KPa, and that could be the killer! Anyway it was interesting to know that the grouted unreinforced masonry has so much capaci-

ty , which designers often underestimate. More interaction with industry representatives and designers are necessary to tap into

the unutilised capacity (especially for compression) to use masonry for 3-4 level buildings. Engineers often neglects the durability

issue associated with reinforced concrete and unreinforced masonry is a good alternative, and look at Egyptian pyramids, what

best example you need more than a design life of well over 3000 years!!

Think Brick Australia has fabulous website and please check out their free technical material by clicking

http://www.thinkbrick.com.au/technical.

A practical oriented presentation with examples! Well done Jake and thanks to all organisations he represents.

………...Editor



http://www.thinkbrick.com.au/technical.

Articulation Joints, Retrofitting of articulation joints Russell Brown, RI Brown Pty Ltd

The presentation by Russell Brown was very similar to most of his presentations a little bit of a ramble here and there and some

pointed facts that most of us may or may not have remembered. The first point raised was that mortar testing by the device in the

Australian Standard is so operator friendly or unfriendly that it should never be used and that proper chemical testing and/or

prism testing is the only way to be really sure of what you've got where brickwork and/or mortar are concerned. Russell did

demonstrate articulately how the machine can be made to work.

He discussed elements of articulation and some of the errors being made in terms of what you think is an articulation join and

isn't and how many of them you want. Discussion was also levelled on retaining walls supporting reasonably large vertical loads.

A link to view the complete presentation slides plus a copy of a paper presented by the Lopes and Brown back in 2001 at the 6th

Australian Masonry Conference in Adelaide, South Australia has been provided on the ACSEV website.

…………... B.Biju

Needles and Toms, Proppa Wall Support John Trenerry, Enertren

John Trenerry representing Enertren has given us a very useful session on Proppa wall support. The Proppa is a robust steel

prop head attachment designed to provide temporary support to masonry walls while lintels or beams are installed. No fasteners

are required to hold the Proppa in place as it securely fits standard builder’s props with a top or head plate of 150mm x 150mm.

The Proppa has a coated finish for protection against corrosion.

Mortar and Brick Testing John Franceschini, Sharp & Howells Pty Ltd

John Franceschini gave us an entertaining talk on the mortar and brick testing. The brick/mortar

testing using hand held tools have no value as the results can be quite variable. Acid cleaning with

high pressure hose is quite detrimental to the mortar strength and should be avoided.

Unsupervised brickwork is the reason for most of the quality issues and the experienced trades

are also in the decline.

Sharp and Howells have laboratory equipment which can even analyse materials at molecular

level. Yes, technology has really helped the testing to become so accurate, that there is no hiding

place for any bad work!! A very good presentation with some useful tips.

…………….Editor



Victorian Building Authority (VBA) "2018 temporary structures information session" R.Brown

The Victorian building authority (VBA) put on an excellent presentation "2018 temporary structures information session". It was

held at Engineers Australia; my goodness they certainly get on with each other. What was presented was excellent and it highlight-

ed that temporary structures are going to be more rigorously overviewed by the VBA and that there is going to be some reasona-

bly harsh crackdowns on poor erection procedures and poor work safe procedures whilst events are on.

If you would like we might be able to get in touch with the VBA and get one of the presenters at this session to come to an

ACSEV meeting and also cover like and similar. Noting that invitations went out to practitioners who are known to be involved in

temporary structures and I don't believe that the notice went out to members who might like to be involved in temporary struc-

tures in the future.

Please express your interest to the editor of the newsletter. If we get above 10-12 interested parties, we will see if we can make

it a session with ACSEV in the coming 12 months.


Disclaimer

Statements made in this News letter do not necessarily represent the views of the Associations. The Associations cannot accept responsibility for the accuracy of any

information supplied or for any loss or damage which may arise from errors or omissions. We strongly advise independent verification of the facts before practice.

..Editor

The Guillotine

A priest, a drunkard, and an engineer were led to the guillotine for their crimes. The execu-tioner pulled the priest forward first and asked him if he wanted to be facing up or down when he met his face. "Upward," said the priest. "I want to be looking toward heaven when I die." The blade zoomed downward, but stopped just an inch short of the priest's throat. All assem-bled agreed that it was divine intervention, and let the priest go free. The drunkard was pulled forward next, and decided to copy the priest, hoping he would get as lucky. Again the blade zoomed down but stopped just short of the drunkard's throat. So the authorities released him as well. It was finally the engineer's turn. He, like the others, decided to face upward. The blade slow-ly raised back into place. "Oh, hey, I think I know what the problem is." The engineer ex-claimed. "That cable to the left appears to be catching the rope!"


AS 2870-Sydney meeting on 5th June 2018 R.Brown

A recent meeting at a town hall in Sydney on 5th June 2018 was convened to look at suggested amendments and overviews re-

lating to Australian Standard 2870 – 2011. For and on behalf of the Foundations & Footings Society (FFSV), Steve Buratto went and

presented the three pages that of what is required to be corrected. In addition Luke Tymensen our current chairman of FFSV also

added some comments which I'm led to believe were also put forwards at the meeting( Come to the joint meeting on the 15th of

August to find out more)

I would highly recommend these documents to be made available that have been repeated without amendment be read by you all

and I mean that to include engineers.

Remember what you put on your drawings is what gets built and if its probability of failure goes up because of your ignorance,

you're not going to be protected.

Book Review

“Apart from the Roads & the

Aqueducts…”The Bridges and Civil

Works of Harold Irwin, 1911 to 1938

By Patrick Irwin and Andrew Boak

An interesting book written based on the

life of Harold Irwin, a civil contractor who built

bridges and water supply works from 1911 to

1940 all across Victoria. Around 29 projects are

documented with a brief note about history of

construction, rich photographs and with some

excellent hand drawn structural drawings. Even

though most of the bridges are not existing

now, the book meticulously traces the history

of engineering in country Victoria. It is worth-

while to note Carisbrook Bridge and James

Paterson Bridge, Charlton constructed in 1925

are still serving today.

The book gives us an idea about the early

bridge construction in country Victoria in an era

where technology was still in its infancy. An

excellent book to have if you are interested in

the engineering history of Victoria.

One of the author Patrick Irwin ( grandson of

Harold Irwin) is also an ACSEV member and a

practicing structural engineer.

This is a high quality publication priced at

just $45 plus $9.90 postage & packing. For cop-

ies Email or telephone Patrick directly.

…..B.Biju

http://www.irwinstructures.com.au/contact.html

[AS 2870]


AS 3700 ‘Masonry Structures’ (2018) Update

By Jake Ring, Innovation Engineer (Structures, Facades, Compliance) PGH Bricks and Pavers

AS 3700 ‘Masonry Structures’ (2018) was published in early February this year. Since the 2011 iteration

of the Standard, the main changes that the BD-004 Standards Australia committee have made are:

• a complete revision of the reinforced masonry under compression design method,

• revision of the unreinforced (grouted) masonry under compression design method,

• inclusion of guidance on designing reinforced masonry under compression for concentrated loads,

• the inclusion of guidance on designing stack bonded masonry.

AS 3700 (2018) Reinforced Masonry (RM) Under Compression Provisions:

With respect to AS 3700 (2011), for the purposes of compression, for a RM wall to be considered and designed as a RM wall, the vertical steel must be laterally restrained in both horizontal directions by steel ties (spaced vertically at each successive course), or else, the wall is designed as an unreinforced masonry (URM) wall, which will achieve around 40 -45% less capacity.

Conventionally, the lateral restrainers are meant to prevent the vertical steel from buckling when compressed, and to act as a placeholder to ensure the steel is accurately located throughout the construction.

Considering this requirement is rarely adhered to onsite, the Australian concrete masonry manufacturers decided to commission the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) to test the effectiveness of different types of restraint, with the hypothesis being that despite the conventional walls being laterally unrestrained (by reinforcing ties), the vertical steel should still be somewhat effective in contributing to the compressive capacity of RM walls as the grout confining the vertical steel should provide some de-gree of lateral restraint to prevent vertical steel buckling, and perhaps a modified equation can be developed for this case.

The research that was completed in late 2016 on 128 different concrete masonry walls and uncovered some very interesting findings.

1. Lateral restraining ties provided no benefit what so ever.

2. Grout Strengths much greater than the AS 3700 (2011) limit of 1.3 x the masonry unit strength, were supplied and tested to no negative effect.

3. The contribution of the grout to the overall compressive strength of the walls was a lot greater than what AS 3700 (2011) has given them credit for.

4. AS 3700 (2011) underrepresented the effects of slenderness and eccentricity.

5. The steel did not reach full yield.

As such, the design formula’s adopted in AS 3700 (2018) for unreinforced grouted masonry, and reinforced masonry under com-pression are both different to the formula’s used within AS 3700 (2011).

Equation: 7.3.2(2) Unreinforced grouted masonry where Φ = 0.6 and f’cg > 12MPa.

TECHNICAL ARTICLE


TECHNICAL ARTICLE-Contd

Sure foot footings

The research relating to sure foot footings appears to be coming to an end and I understand the results will eventually be pub-

lished. In the meantime you should make your own assessments of a product that revolves around light galvanising tube that has

reasonably thin walls (2-3mm) that will potentially rust and there are some acute limitations are as to how well it handles reactivi-

ty. It is all very well I believe for strength to be the guiding rule but the problem with house movement and failure is not strength,

its reactivity. Thus take caution in utilising them without doing your own analysis of differential movement that may or may not be

caused by moisture variation. Obviously temporary construction, construction with enough space underneath to readjust and re-

level may all perform superbly but I do think the product prior to any testing coming out to indicate otherwise should be a serious

engineering design approach. ….R.Brown

Equation 8.5 Reinforced Masonry where Φ = 0.75, f’cg > 12MPa, αr = 0.4 (for walls), and

Note: As≥0.002Ad, and for walls, the vertical steel must be surrounded by a grout annulus of at least twice the diameter of the steel bar. For verticality of the steel, this must be controlled in the construction process and can be assisted with the use of bar chairs.For a more comprehensive breakdown of AS 3700 (2018) changes and implications, please visit the Concrete Masonry Asso-ciation of Australia (CMAA) website and access their free technical manuals and downloads.

AS 3700 (2018) Stack bonded Masonry provisions:

For those not familiar, stack bonded masonry is a form of (typically unreinforced clay) masonry construction where the per-pend joints are vertically aligned, having no overlap between successive courses. This form of masonry walling is becoming increas-ingly popular with Architects, however has caused headaches for the Structural Engineer trying to prove compliance with AS 3700 (2011), specifically when designing for robustness (Clause 4.6 AS 3700), which required the engineer to assess the walls bending capacity to resist an out of plane load of 0.5 KPa.

When designing a masonry wall for 2 way bending (with supports on at least 2 adjacent sides), the designer must calculate the walls horizontal bending capacity. Following the design procedure in section 7.4.3, when assessing the wall against stepped failure, the resistance provided by the bond pattern is represented by the perpend spacing factor, kp, which for stackbonded masonry with zero overlap, equates to zero. Because of this, for the purpose of code compliance, the designer will struggle to justify convention-al stackbonded walls as having greater than zero capacity.

Since 2011, the University of Newcastle conducted a series of published tests on stack bonded masonry walls subjected to out of plane loading with the results informing the provisions in section 4.12 of AS 3700 (2018).

Essentially, section 4.12 of AS 3700 (2018) has been added and stipulates that anchored bed joint reinforcing (with an area >.00035 x the gross vertical cross sectional area of the wall) and complying with sections 5.9.3, 5.9.5 for durability and section 11.8 of AS 3700 (2018) should be inserted at the following locations:

• the first bed joint above or below an unrestrained horizontal edge of the masonry

• at least one bed joint within 300 mm above and below any horizontal lines of lateral support

• the reinforcing should be vertically spaced at centres not exceeding six times the thickness of the stack bonded leaf.

Stack bonded members should be designed as unreinforced masonry for compression, shear and vertical bending and as rein-forced masonry for horizontal and two-way bending provided that the aforementioned detailing requirements are adhered to.

For a more comprehensive overview, please visit the Think Brick Australia website, and download the Stack bonding factsheet from the website’s Technical section.

( )cg0.55 0.005

cg

d es m b c g r sy s1.3

ff

F k f A k A f A

+ + +

( )es 1.0 0.025 1.0 2.0r

ek S

t

= − −

Date Topic Speaker Ac-

tion

Dinner Venue Meeting

Venue

January, 2018 No meeting

21 Feb, 2018 Concrete site visit/laboratory-Hansen Plant, Dan-

denong/Oakleigh

FH NA Oakleigh

21 Mar, 2018 Structural steel/small builds Spiros Dallas, RB Box hill Golf

Club

Box hill Golf

Club

18 Apr, 2018 Engineers registration, work cover issues and non

compliant materials and people.

Joe Genco RB Box hill Golf

Club

Box hill Golf

Club

16 May, 2018 Façade Equation: Overseas Materials Procurement-

Quality Control=Inevitable Failure?

OMP-QC=IF?

Peter Smithson

Oliver Ng

DL Box hill Golf

Club

Box hill Golf

Club

06 Jun, 2018 Workshop on Masonry Multiple JN/RB Swinburne

20 Jun, 2018

Concrete mix design

Joanne Portella

FH

Box hill Golf

Club

Swinburn

Box hill Golf

Club

18 July , 2018 Forensic Engineering and Lessons to Learn from Fail-

ures

Box hill Golf

Club

Box hill Golf

Club

15 Aug, 2018 ACSEV and FFSV joint meeting

Multiple RB Box hill Golf

Club

Box hill Golf

Club

19 Sep, 2018 Design with SPAX Timber screws TBC RN Box hill Golf

Club

Box hill Golf

Club

17 Oct, 2018 AGM. Legal review of Tribunals and Courts and regu-

lations that affect engineers in the new environment

Ed Samo RB Box hill Golf

Club

Box hill Golf

Club

09 Nov, 2018 Annual Dinner

TBA TBA

December, 2018 No meeting


ACSEV TECHNICAL MEETINGS/SEMINARS Technical meetings/seminars are held monthly on a variety of topics which are designed to promote involvement in continuing profes-sional development (CPD).ACSEV is recognised by the Victorian Building Authority as a CPD provider for registered engineers. ACSEV members discuss matters and issues of common interest or concerns related to the engineering profession and professional practice, in addition to networking with other design engineers.

ACSEV technical meetings are highly recognised among engineering community for its content and relevance to practice.

Technical meetings/Seminar 2018


REVIEW OF TECHNICAL MEETINGS

ACSEV Membership fees 2018-2019

ACSEV membership fees are collected for the financial year starting from July. Please pay your fees before June 30th

2018. Paying your fees on time will greatly help the committee to run a smooth operation.

Australian Steel Institute & Swinburne University Technical Presentation, ‘High Strength Bolts’ R.Brown I decided to torture myself and attend a bolt seminar on 8th May 2017 (a joint presentation by Swinburne University and the Aus-

tralian Steel Institute). I felt that as I was attending a welding presentation at the May ACSEV meeting that I may as well complete

the double and get the bolts out of the way and I am happy I did so as it was an absolute eye-opener. Note, the complete presen-

tation has been put on our website for you to review.

The first point of importance is that in this country no more bolts are made; they are all imported. The closest thing we come to

having a bolt made in this country is we manufacture threaded bar.

Peter Key was unable to present and his place was taken by Michael Simmons who summed it up rather well. Prof Saman Fer-

nando of Swinburne was our other presenter and ultimately was able to stress the following:

•The cheaper the bolt, the worse it is.

•The better the paperwork the easier to find fault but doesn't of necessity eliminate failure.

•The use of Australian Standard AS/NZS:5131 in conjunction with 1252:2016 will get you into compliance with NCC.

What appears to be the most important practical aspect is an understanding of what is stamped on the bolt itself and what it

actually means and what it implies? Further, the presentation highlighted some difficulties inherent in being able to test bolts on

site; how does one test a snug tight bolt 7m up the face of a portal frame column? How does one test the ridge? How many should

be tested? Do you test the product before it goes into place and should you wait until it is in place and then use a torque wrench?

Noting the torqueing is not necessarily one of the methods approved for installation. Load indicating washers appear to be of

some value but there might be some difficulty in testing them and/or proving their truth of function.

More importantly, all of the good products and the best ways of doing things cost a lot of money. Further, there is an expecta-

tion that it will be the engineer who finds the mistakes, checks the paperwork and ensures that everything works. This of course is

in addition to your design and analysis coming up with the right bolt size and type in the first place.

A note of acute warning, under no circumstances should you use a 10.9 bolt without reading this presentation in full and running

through all the factors and realising that if the thread is in the shear plain you are better off with an 8.8 (note the mathematics

involved in the 10.9 bolts is horrendous)

Become an ACSEV member

The Association of Consulting Structural

Engineers Victoria (ACSEV) is a profes-

sional association of structural engi-

neers that provides technical and pro-

fessional support to its members.

ACSEV aims to facilitate better commu-

nication and goodwill between structur-

al engineers, particularly those in small

practices, and to advance the

knowledge and professionalism of all

members through technical training and

regular contact with experienced engi-

neers.

Our members specialise in structural

engineering design related to the build-

ing industry on projects including com-

mercial buildings, industrial develop-

ments, residential developments, do-

mestic housing, institutional buildings,

retail developments, bridges and vari-

ous other structures.

Membership is offered at various levels

to students, new graduates and indus-

try associates, with full membership

status available to qualified and experi-

enced structural engineers eligible for

either Building Practitioner (Vic) regis-

tration (EC - Engineer Civil) or member-

ship of Engineers Australia.

Membership form can be downloaded

from www.acsev.org.au

REVIEW OF TECHNICAL MEETINGS


Engineers Fees A sample of ACSEV members were surveyed in 2017 with

regards to fee scales. The results printed do not include

GST.GST must be added to the above rates. In addition,

vehicle costs should be charged at the RACV scale. Mem-

bers are not bound by this schedule. The range given is mid-

dle and some consultants may charge more or less depend-

ant up on project difficulty or skill level required and size of

project.

EXPERT WITNESS $300-$400

DIRECTOR/PARTNER $250-$350

SENIOR ENGINEER $200-$250

ENGINEER: $130-$200

SENIOR DRAFTSPERSON: $130-$170

DRAFT PERSON: $100-$130

OFFICE ADMIN $90 -$110

Welding Structural Steel – from standards to site Melissa Odendaal & Bruce Ham (WTIA) 17th May 2017

What a great presentation by our joint presenters from the Welding Technology Institute of

Australia (WTIA). Melissa Odendaal, International Welding Engineer, was naturally more tech-

nically orientated with a scientific approach to how and why welding should be done proper-

ly. Bruce Ham, Chief Technology Officer, on the other hand gave us an understanding of the

practicalities, the code requirements and the regulatory systems that are put in place.

It was brought home that not all welders are welders, and in fact in many cases he pointed

out where welders are asked to prove they can do something, quite a large number (18 out

of 20) actually did not measure up to the requirements of a government specification. Alarm-

ing in the extreme.

I was surprised to hear that it takes 300 hours to train someone to weld to a given standard

and even more, to get to A-grade.

I (like most) find the regulatory items to be somewhat disturbing and difficult to get my head

around because there appears to be so many of them, but it was highlighted that it is not as

challenging as it first seems. If you specify your welds correctly, then most of the regulatory

items become the responsibility of the fabricator. …...R.Brown

Drop your tools - Does expertise play a role in engineer-ing failures? Dr Sean Brady on 18 July 2018

The first thing we discovered he has an Irish accent as strong as his name would indicate. Sec-

ondly, he gave an excellent presentation on engineering failures basically avoiding how math-

ematics can be ignored and not in fact part of the problem, when of course it technically has

to be. The reasons that he put forwards for failures is that human beings fundamentally hang

onto errors and have baggage that stops them in some cases even though it's burningly obvi-

ous that things will fail unless they act differently. His basic take was that errors and mistakes

are going to happen, it's a matter of do you take an attitude to review them and train yourself

in a way that they don't flow through to the end result. The concept of proper training and

also having an independent review of your attitudes and processes would also appear to be

high on the list to minimising and in many cases eliminating failures. It was a most illumi-

nating talk and not one I personally expected. We should have him back again……...R.Brown

http://www.acsev.org.au/

Timber advisory www.timber.org.au Concrete institute of Australia www.concreteinstitute.com.au Cement Australia www.cemaust.com.au

Concrete Masonry Association of Australia www.cmaa.com.au

Cement Concrete and Aggregates Australia www.concrete.net.au

Australian Steel Institute www.steel.org.au

Victorian Building Authority www.vba.vic.gov.au

Australian Stainless Steel Development Association www.assda.asn.au

Forest & Wood Products Australia www.fwpa.com.au

The Australian Timber Database www.timber.net.au

Wood Naturally Better www.naturallybetter.com.au

Galvanizers Association of Australia www.gaa.com.au

Australian Building Codes Board www.abcb.gov.au

Australian Glass & Glazing Association www.agga.org.au

Foundations and Footing Society of Australia www.footingsaustralia.org.au

Engineers Australia www.engineersaustralia.org.au

WEB LINKS


YOUR CONTACT DETAILS CHANGED???

Please let us know

Please contact

Membership Officer:

Francis Hsieh

494 Springvale Road, Glen Waverley, VIC 3150

[email protected]

http://www.timber.org.au

http://www.concreteinstitute.com.au

http://www.cemaust.com.au

http://www.cmaa.com.au

http://www.concrete.net.au

http://www.steel.org.au

http://www.buildingcommission.com.au

http://www.assda.asn.au

http://www.fwpa.com.au

http://www.timber.net.au

http://www.naturallybetter.com.au

http://www.gaa.com.au

http://www.abcb.gov.au

http://www.agga.org.au

http://www.footingsaustralia.org.au

http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au

The Brown Report

Well a couple of editions have actually gone out and this one I would hope is looking pretty good,

in fact we appear to have rolled along to just under 10 advertisers committed at the moment some

of them are getting their advertising and/or presentations together so if you know somebody who

might be interested in marketing advertising or putting forwards a position via an ad please do con-

tact either myself or Biju we can send you the relevant information and perhaps help and assist in

getting them to market through us. They are expected to come to one meeting at our expense per

annum so that they can acknowledge the fact they are an advertiser and they are asked to give one article per four additions so

that we can put out some interesting stories based on industry feedback from in most cases the manufacturing end. We are look-

ing forward to enrolling them in helping and assisting in offering one or two days’ work per month for students looking for experi-

ence in industry. Further most of our advertisers are fully aware that we are a non-profit organisation and the newsletter is done

on less than a shoestring (no one on the committee has been able to pay for one as yet) and we thus spend all of our funds funda-

mentally on research which is the area in which both ACSEV and FFSV have been heading in recent times.

From around the traps this is the time of year due to registration that you're all getting quotes for your insurance. It turns out

that if you're doing foundations or accepting designs for foundations, your premiums are about to jump. Also you will note that

not only do your premiums jump but the excess you have to pay is also on the rise. The reason for this will be highlighted at the

joint FFSV/ACSEV meeting coming up; we are not getting good results in terms of following the deemed to comply Australian

Standard 2870 in H2 situations. Arguments are put that if there is no abnormal moisture conditions on the site that we don't have

problems. What everybody is overlooking is that some of these problems are actually built in and thus need to be taken into ac-

count.

A large number of you do work on inner suburban blocks where pull down and rebuild is initiated. Sometimes the soil investiga-

tions ignore that underneath the old (weatherboard) houses is bone dry and that most of the really old ones with earthenware

plumbing have leaked into the ground and thus have very wet areas as well as the dry zone. The combination of this sends the Ys

value through the roof. Do ensure you come to the joint meeting on the 15th August 2018.


YOUR AD? CONTACT

[email protected]

asev & ffsv newsletter · researching screw piles for reactive soils jointly by asev, ffsv,...

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