Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan
State University Library. Find more at:
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/
55
58 PRACTISE BEFORE YOU PREACH
250 m in height — veritable man-made mountains, beside which the great
pyramids pale into insignificance. The city walls of Sumeria were also of
monumental proportions; the highest were of the order of 60m, with base
widths of 30m. Irrigation and flood control techniques, coupled with fertile
soils, gave rise to an agricultural surplus and, on this hinged the ability of
the Assyrians and Sumerians to indulge in the structural excesses already
mentioned. The responsibility of the engineer builder was brought home to
him by the Hammurabic code which would have put him to death if failure
of his structures caused loss of life, and the sentence might well include
members of his family if a family were killed in a collapse: a mantle of
responsibility which rightly continues but is more humanely applied today.
The materials available dictated the structural forms used and the life
of the structures. The Tigris-Euphrates people worked largely in sunburnt
brick with little timber or stone; and as their rivers were relatively wild, few
of their engineering achievements survived the ravages of time. The Egyptian
civilization was better protected by the desert barrier, and the Nile was
naturally regulated and more predictable. This enabled consistent agricultural
surpluses to be used for trade. Barges and ships were built, and stone and
timber were added to brick as the principal building materials. Structural
form was still largely confined to columns and lmtels but larger spans were
feasible. The engineer reached a peak in the public esteem and the quality of
life was high.
The first major revolt against technology appears to have been that of
ancient Greece. There, philosophical thought, music and the arts, and sport,
caused an eclipse of technology. Scientific principles tended to be confined
to their pure and philosophical applications rather than to any engineering
applications. Greek civilization spread to Syracuse in Sicily where probably
the best known exponent of engineering was Archimedes. It was symptomatic
of those times that he is best remembered for his principle, the problem of
the alloy of King Hieron's crown, rather than for his war machines which
were fine engineering developments. Regrettably, even he was conditioned
to decry his own practical achievements compared to his contributions to
scientific principles. The Romans were well aware of his potential usefulness
and Marcellus gave explicit instructions that Archimedes be taken alive.
Unfortunately, he was killed while busily engaged in sketching new designs
on the beach sands.
The Romans were a motivated and pragmatic people with a real sense
of purpose in life. While we may dispute just who introduced the arch and
the use of concrete, they certainly deserve the credit for having had the
courage to exploit new structural forms and to advance the art and practice
of engineering by venturing forward to ever larger spans, new materials and
novel techniques. Concrete was made by mixing natural pozzolithic volcanic
materials with lime, shuttering and centering, and propping techniques were
established. The timber truss was introduced and developed, and simple
Jintels became rarer. The 43m dome of the Pantheon, and the long span semi-
circular arches of their bridges and aqueducts, such as the Pont du Gard,
W. R. MACKECHNIB 57
proved to be no substitute for a full road network. The '45 did lead to the
constmction of three times as many further military roads in the following
half century and provided much of the motivation for engineering training
and skills in Scotland, Whether Robert Burns had been travelling on Wade's
roads or others is not recorded, but he did have this to say about 3780:
I'm now arrived — thanks to the gods!
Thro' pathways rough and muddy,
A certain sign that makin' roads
Is no this people's study.
Engineering was developing fastest in continental Europe in the eighteenth
century, notably in France, with the establishment of the Ecoles des Ponts
et Chaussees in 1747; in Germany at Karlsruhe, and in Holland where the
problems of sea defences and drainage were paramount.
The canal as a means of economical transportation sparked develop-
ments in Britain. It led to the associated canal aqueducts, canal tunnels, and
locks of Brindley and Telford and to the development of that marvel of
brawn and muscle in the muck-shifting field, the navvy who worked on the
navigations.
Economic pressures and the competition of free enterprise became para-
mount; the railway rapidly overtook the canal and there was no longer time
for the tried and trusted system of training based solely on apprenticeship
and experience. Experience had to be distilled and the initial dose of engineer-
ing education in theory and principles was conceived. The pooling of practical
observation and knowledge led first to the foundation of the Smeatonian
.Society of Engineers, and independently, thereafter, to the Institution of Civil
Engineers in 1818, with Thomas Telford as its first President. The adjective
'civiF was chosen about this time to distinguish them from military engineers,
both branches having previously co-existed simply as engineers prior to this.
permitted to fall down, with the most elegant arch structure which has only
recently been dismantled and re-erected in America.
University College London, introduced courses in engineering in 1827,
but the Inaugural Professor failed to take up his appointment. Thus, credit
for the first full University School of Engineering in the English-speaking world
goes to King's College, London in 1838. The Massachussetts Institute of
Technology opened in 1865; Cambridge appointed its first engineering pro-
fessor in 1875. The University of Cape Town's first Professor of Civil Engineer-
ing took his seat on their Senate in 1903. Oxford only followed suit as recently
as 1909 and even Professor Southwell stated in 1930 that it would be rash
to assume that the respectability of engineering as a University Faculty was
yet beyond dispute.
The Institution of Civil Engineers has maintained its involvement with
civil-engineering education throughout. The contribution they have made
has stood the test of time and flourished in the English-speaking world save
in America, where, I am convinced, they are the poorer for it. While the
progressive division of the profession into constituent institutions — mechani-
cal, electrical, and many others — was understandable, it can only be re-
gretted. This division of influence and purpose was confined to Britain and
South Africa and I can only express my delight that this is not the case in
Rhodesia, nor in the other countries of the Commonwealth.
The magic of the appeal of civil engineering is in the catholic nature of
the civil engineer's involvement in the requirements of society. Few civil
engineering projects do not require that breadth of knowledge — defined
in the Charter of the Institution of Civil Engineers (London) as 'being the
art of directing the great sources of power in Nature for the use and con-
venience of Man' — or the possession of the attributes noted on the coat of
62 PRACTISE BEFORE YOU PREACH
arms, 'Science and Ingenuity'. Examination of the 1828 Charter shows thai
it goes on to define the scope of the profession in detail
as a means of production and of traffic in States both for External
and Interna] trade as applied in the construction of roads, bridges
aqueducts, canals, river navigation and docks for internal inter-
course and exchange, and in the construction of ports, harbours,
moles, breakwaters and lighthouses and in the art of navigation
by artificial power for the purposes of commerce and in the con-
struction and adaptation of machinery and in the drainage of cities
and towns.
While some of you may gasp, we in the profession can only say that, while
some of these topics have been delegated, the increase in scope has been
vast and a concise definition is no longer possible. The Civil Engineer must
set his sights on an expanding universe. He cannot afford to enter a restrictive
field because that will result in a particular identity, and thus loss of the
civil engineering identity, which depends on leadership and breadth of vision.
When I joined the University, I was asked to consider a name for my depart-
ment other than 'Civil Engineering' to indicate the unity and commonness of
purpose which we certainly intend to foster and develop here in the Faculty
of Engineering in Rhodesia. I gave the matter earnest consideration and
was faced with 'civil' engineering or a string of ten adjectives to only one
of which I could dare profess. I believe that the decision to retain the original
title of 'Civil Engineering' was the correct one, and that any other title
would be either divisive or pretentious.
The growth of cities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to
ever increasing problems in the provision of services particularly the provision
of water and the disposal of sewage. I trust you will not think me too jingo-
istic if I continue to refer to London and Britain on a few further occasions
before coming closer to home. In 1815 the cesspools of London could be
connected to the sewers; there followed serious cholera epidemics between
1831 and 1854 with up to 20 000 deaths in the worst years. The sewers dis-
charged all along the Thames and the 'big stink1 of 1858 is said to have
been so bad that the committee rooms of Parliament were untenable. This
probably explains the speed with which the amending legislation was passed
to enable the main-drainage system (still functioning) to be financed. How-
ever, there was a resistance to the proposals from many quarters who showed
a strong resentment at London's good sewage being thrown into the sea
and not being retained as manure for their benefit.I think this illustrates that
we are not necessarily at the bottom of the trough today but may well be
climbing back to conditions of sanity and reasonableness in the pollution
field.
The railways reigned supreme for the remainder of the nineteenth
century; bridges, and viaducts, cuttings, embankments and tunnels pro-
liferated, and theory and engineering materials developed in an attempt to
keep pace with the natural challenges presented by topography. The bridge
of the century was certainly the Forth Bridge (Fig. 4), with its three massive
cantilever double frames in tubular riveted steel. Sir Benjamin Baker's
W. R. MACKECHNIE 63
1950s, two junior scholarships for first degree purposes and one senior scholar-
ship for postgraduation training purposes were awarded. Two Fellow-
ships for postgraduate study and research together with other bursaries for
first degrees continue to be awarded and are open to students wishing to
study in any chose discipline. No fewer than three of the current academic
staff of our Faculty have been Beit Scholars or Fellows, and within the
University and Rhodesia there are many others who have so benefited.
In engineering on a wider scale we can mention men such as Dr J. R.
Rydzewski and Dr H. Olivier in the field of irrigation engineering, and
Professor E. Hoek in rock mechanics.
We have in Rhodesia a number of exceptionally fine examples of the
bridge. The Victoria Falls Arch (Fig. 6), the Chirundu Suspension Bridge,
In order to investigate these sites, holes are drilled with such piling
machines and engineers and geologists descend these for visual inspection
and sampling of the soil in situ. Figure 10 illustrates a typical trial hole.
One need scarcely add that the day seems all that much more pleasant when
one emerges from the last hole and sheds one's protective clothing and
safety harness.
fflKKfcgr JfegSSSssgg
Probably the dam presents the designer with the essence of this challenge.
Here one is concerned with construction on a site of obvious imperfection,
which leads to the development of the river valley. Not only is one concerned,
as Andre Coyne stated, 'with the foundation on the base and flanks, but
with the basin as a whole. It is there that the greatest risks lie and where
nine out of ten failures occur. There are always faults of shape of mechanical
resistance, of water tightness, or. in more general terms, of resistance to
water.' Possibly the most dramatic illustration of this was the Vajont dis-
aster in Italy in 1963, where rising waters of the lake caused a massive slip
200-300 million cubic metres (equivalent to the volume of water in Lake
Mcllwaine) of rock and soil which displaced water in a veritable tidal wave
which overtopped the double curvature 265m high arch dam (still the highest
W. R. MACKECHNiE 73
This development has flowed from their partial involvement with Kariba
Dam and further involvement with Kyle Dam. Kyle Dam, Rhodesia's largest
internal reservoir, overflowed for the first time in 1975 and I think you will
agree that in Figure 17, it presents a pleasing and satisfying sight; truly a
happy event and ultimately vindication for the hydrologists who, in typical
Rhodesian manner, have taken advantage of nature by raising the top water
Figure 17: KYLE DAM SPILLING FOR THE FIRST TIME 1975:
HYDROLOGISTS VINDICATED!
level by spillway gates and have impounded in the top metre a very consider-
able additional volume of water for the agricultural industry's benefit.
Nothing is static or absolute in civil engineering and this can be illustrated
by many examples typical of which are the following extracts taken from
W. R. MACKECHNIE 75
Professor Sir Charles Inglis's classic lecture on the aesthetics of civil engineer-
ing design. When discussing suspension bridges, he stated: 'Owing to their
great diameter, the cables cannot be kinked by any localized live load and
consequently no truss was required for stiffening the roadway'. The failure
of the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge gave the lie to this a little later when
it developed dynamic instability and failed in resonance in gale force winds.
It was significant too that in the same lecture, Sir Charles stated that 'the
economic limit of span for a reinforced concrete arch is about 500 feet, the
limit being imposed by the prohibitive cost of the moulds and falsework if
this span is exceeded'.
more common. The nuclear power station will make its presence felt in-
creasingly with the consumption of the present reserves of oil and coal. Can
the civil engineer provide the answers to the problems which will follow suc-
cessful reactor shielding and containment? Could the proposal to build a
complete floating nuclear power station come to fruition? If so, will the
structure ride out storms at sea? And if not, what breakwater requirements
will ensure its safety close off shore? Certainly, cooling water requirements
will be satisfied by siting such stations on the coasts and could lead to a
minimum of pollution from waste heat if they floated.
Water transportation by canal is about to see a revival and countries
such as Russia and Canada have vast scope in this respect. The impoundment
of water by rockfill and earth rock fill dams proceeds apace. Some such dams
are now over 300m in height and are being constructed with a section which
is arched in the upstream direction to contribute to the stability by the com-
pressive thrust thus developed on the earth core. Bays and channels open to
the sea are being dammed for fresh water impoundment; a second such scheme
is currently under way between one of the Hong Kong Islands and the main-
land and follows the damming of a bay on another island some years ago.
Towers and structures reach ever higher; larger domes, shells and arches
are being built, but behind all the successes is the background of the develop-
ing art and science of engineering, a better understanding of the environment
and the materials we mould to our purpose. Established methods tend to be
adapted to new materials without due consideration of the applicability of
old methods to the new material's characteristics. The use of elastic modular
theory was developed for steel structures and carried through into reinforced
concrete. The revolution is now only occurring with the introduction of limit
state analysis which accepts that concrete is unlike steel. It is a material
which develops strength with time and exhibits greater strengths when sub-
jected to relatively high rates of stress increment, but creeps under long
sustained loads and in such circumstances exhibits minimum ultimate strength.
Each material in a structure composed of composite materials has its own
strength characteristics and by applying a factor of safety which is statistically
acceptable to each component to ensure against its failure, it is possible to
produce a far more meaningful assessment of a composite material's per-
formance. Loading limits of structures tend to be abused and depending on
the structure a meaningful statistical assessment can be made of this factor
also. In combination a design system lor reinforced concrete which tends
to approach reality can be developed and should lead to greater economics
of materials in some areas and equally to the improvement of actual factors
of safety in others.
Collapse and total failure of engineering structures as opposed to mere
distress, is usually the outcome of a complete lack of appreciation of struc-
tural function on the part of the designer or, alternatively, is due to culpable
negligence on the part of the contractor. Structures do not fall down simply
as a result of an overstress of 20 per cent: they may then show some mild
distress and should be capable of being load tested under full load plus 25
8O PRACTISE BEFORE YOU PREACH
per cent of live load and perform satisfactorily. The careful instrumentation
and observation of a load test can produce a wealth of information and valua-
ble confirmation of theory and leads to an understanding of structure which
no laboratory equivalent test can provide. The testing to destruction of the
old Dental Hospital of the University of the Witwatersrand and of the Alliance
Building Society Building in Cape Town, provided unique opportunities to
compare actual ultimate performance with design forecasts. The effect of sun
and shadow on a structure under test quickly brings home to the young en-
gineer the realities of structural behaviour. He develops confidence when cracks
appear in the areas where they are predicted. He is enabled to diagnose and
prescribe a cure. This ability to cure structural failure or distress is a
fascinating area of civil engineering. An example that typifies it was the
failure of the Transcona Grain Silo complex in Canada (Fig. 19) — a case
of rotational shear failure of the clay beneath the foundations. It was not the
classical slip circle failure which impressed, but the fact that it was possible
to recover the structure, and place it upon a satisfactory foundation and
then bring it back into commission once more.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
82