We’re proud to have our General Manager Structural Systems Dr Stephen Hicks invited to deliver a keynote address at the 13th International Conference on Steel, Space & Composite Structures.
Hosted in Perth from 31 January to 2 February 2018, it’s expected to be attended by over 70 attendees from 18 different countries across design, fabrication and academic disciplines to explore and share expertise in a collaborative environment.
This invitation follows the landmark publication of the steel and steel-concrete composite design standards AS/NZS 5100.6 and AS/NZS 2327 – work that Stephen was extensively involved in getting across the line.
For those attending, Stephen’s presentation is a fantastic opportunity to get an overview of the research work leading to its design rules, as well as new developments expected in the second generation of the equivalent European standards.
Stephen’s former position on the Eurocode 4 committee also places him in a unique position to share valuable insight into these standards as well as future research needs for the next generation of international composite standards.
While reflecting on this research Stephen said “The development of the standards involved a highly collaborative research process to address the limitations in NZS 3404. All in an effort to support Australasian quenched and tempered steels up to 690 MPa and concrete compressive strengths up to 100 MPa.”
“We had teams from HERA, the University of Sydney, Western Sydney University and University of New South Wales, Australia and University of Applied Sciences, Germany come together to achieve this.”
“And because of this approach, we were able to develop many of the composite design rules from a fundamental level, including calculating the magnitude of capacity reduction (safety) factors,” he said.
At HERA, we believe having Stephen speak at this conference will provide greater confidence to users of the new standards by helping them understand the thinking behind many of its new design rules. This work also aligns strongly with our strategic focus to assist our members to push boundaries and innovate. Where being part of the research leading to the first joint New Zealand and Australian composite design standards for bridges and multi-storey buildings was a great step in this direction.
Post #SS18 – how did it all go?
For the first time held in an Australasian country the event was a great success! Our General Manager Structural Systems Dr Stephen Hicks delivered his key note speech on ‘New developments in international steel and concrete composite design standards.’ Highlighting the key features about the emerging technical issues faced by the local industry such as structural safety for adopting overseas steel products and the higher concrete and steel strength up to fy=690MPa and c’=100MPa. He also shared an important update for the design rules for fatigue design in AS/NZS 5100.6, design equations for shear stud capacity and ongoing standards development for a new push test for Eurocode 4 which we’ve been a main driving force behind.
Our Senior Structural Engineer Dr. Jing Cao also presented on his R&D project for developing a new composite slab system Hibond 80, which had become the first product of its kind in New Zealand to comply with AS/NZS 2327:2017. He gave an overview of this two-year project discussing in detail the development for the design value of the slab’s longitudinal shear capacity. And, the supporting analysing procedure of a rigorous structural reliability analysis adhering to AS/NZS 2327, employing comprehensive Monte-Carlo simulation.
