Discussion

Dr O. A. Kerensky,

Member, Interim Committee on Structural Safety

Ensuring safety is a very difficult problem for engineers. To illustrate this I will describe the saga of creating the Standing Committee on Structural Safety.

The Construction Industry Research and Information Association had a committee chaired by Sir Alfred Pugsley which had the limited aim of trying to arrive at load factors for limit state design philosophy. After seven years of work it produced some general ideas without figures and recommended that another committee should be formed to study the problem further. This recommendation was accepted by the Association and the Institutions of Civil, Structural and Municipal Engineers, and a committee was set up under my chairmanship which considered for about a year whether or not a standing safety committee should be created; the conclusion was that it should.