Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

I have recently moved from Gatwick Airport to start work at Sir Robert McAlpine Design Group in their Temporary Works team. I’m still in the first weeks here but have already been given quite a few tasks to work on. It’s certainly been a challenge to recall the lectures and read my notes from phase 1 and apply them to practical examples! I thought I would share some initial observations early days.

Some of the tasks I have done already include designing a concrete lintel for an opening including props to enable the lintel’s installation. I have also done buckling checks on plunge columns (not strictly temp works…) which has had me looking over some of the worked examples and exercises we did in phase 1. In particular have found that using the IStructE Eurocode guides and just asking around the office has been helpful. It seems that the design team here prefer to do a lot of design by hand on calc paper almost exactly the way we have been taught in phase 1. The team also use quite a bewildering number of software programmes to check the calcs. However, Robot and MasterSeries seem to be the most useful. Robot in particular for frame, slab and plate analysis, MasterSeries for connections and capacity of steel members. I have also found that BeamPal is quite useful for doing simple bending moment and shear force checks of beams.

For those about to go onto phase 2 and then phase 3 at the end of the year I hope this shows that what we learn is put into practical use in industry. Also it might prove useful for future students to gain a working understanding of software they use.