ICE - Institution of Civil Engineers - Virtual Library

Ten new countries are due to join the European Union this time next year – making a single economic market of 450 million people. ICE European affairs manager Oivind Grimsmo reviews what this means for civil engineers.

The UK Government's new plans for energy rely too much on gas supplies and energy companies, according to David Anderson, chairman of the ICE energy board. A more diverse approach is needed to ensure security.

Professional indemnity insurance premium for some civil engineers have risen by 400% over the past 12 months. Lance Rigby of Howden Insurance Brokers explains the background to the recent increases and suggests how to control them.

Lean thinking has cut the costs but also the reliability of infrastructure. David Tranfield and David Denyer of the Mouchel-Cranfield Centre for Infrastructure Management suggest that civil engineers should start looking more closely at high-reliability organisations.

Statutory adjudication on UK construction contracts and uncertainty about the enforceability of alternative dispute resolution clauses means mediation has tended to take a back seat in recent years. Jeremy Winter of Baker & McKenzie reports that things could now change.

Structural integrity engineering has been vital to the offshore, nuclear and aircraft industries for many years but has only recently debuted in general engineering. Mike Burdekin of UMIST reports on the background and role of a new UK forum designed to increase understanding.

Profiled steel permanent formwork is commonly used in composite slab construction. However, according to Paul Markham, design engineer with a major contractor, a buck-passing approach to procurement means a major accident is waiting to happen.

Detection of landfill gas does not necessarily mean that a site requires expensive remediation—it's the flow rate that counts. Mike Bevan of geoenvironmental consultancy IGES reports on successful trials with a new instrument for measuring landfill gas flows.

The £50 million Hungerford Bridge millennium project in London provides two stunning new cable-stayed footbridges across the Thames, one on each side of Charing Cross railway bridge. Effectively it recreates Brunel's 1846 suspension footbridge to Hungerford market, the piers of which remain in the railway bridge structure. Heightened fears over unexploded bombs in the river bed led to a major redesign just after work started but a switch to the NEC contract helped ensure a smooth completion.

Applications to study civil engineering at British universities halved between 1995 and 2001, reflecting the profession's declining attraction as a career. This paper reports on a study of school and college students to discover why. It concludes that the problems which need to be addressed include the ‘invisibility’ of the profession, the absence of positive role models, low starting salaries and unattractive working conditions.

Electrification of the final stretch of the busiest passenger railway in the USA required substantial modification to five existing opening bridges—some nearly 100 years old—to accommodate 25 kV overhead power lines. This paper reports on the development and installation of an innovative, moving catenary system, believed to the first of its kind in the world, which has breathed new life into an ageing infrastructure.