January 2014

Spotlight on the Humble Trench Crossing Plate - 10/04/15

Returning this month to a more technical theme I have unashamedly plagiarised one of my colleague’s recent technical notes concerning the long serving (and suffering) trench crossing plate. These are one of the less glamorous pieces of kit in our hire fleet generally cut out of old ¾” thick boiler plate in 8’ x 4’ (apologies for the imperial units) size. To comply with current safety regulations they are generally coated with some sort of non-slip or anti-skid coating with a lifting hole burnt into each corner; and that is just about as sophisticated as they get.

Eurocode 3 (EC3) vs BS5950 - 07/01/14

Prior to the adoption of Eurocodes in the UK, all the load capacity verifications and charts for our standard CHS struts were determined from BS 5950; EC3 although on the face of it, being a limit state code, is a natural progression from BS5950 however numerous detail changes exist within the document.