Opening address

When prompted by my headmaster to apply /or a

job as an apprentice civil engineer, my brother

(an electrical engineer) said that before I

could build a Forth Bridge I must be able to

design a culvert. I looked up the -word in the

public library because it meant nothing to me.

I am still at the culvert stage in bridge design!

Many designers in the 1930s were concerned with the effects of wind on bridge structures, but it was not until 1950 when I saw the film of the Tacoma Narrows collapse of 19^ that I appreciated the problems of the effect of high winds on a flexible structure such as a suspension bridge. All designers of buildings took into account wind pressure, but it tended to be treated as a static load rather than a dynamic one. This is no longer the case as this Conference shows.