ICE - Institution of Civil Engineers - Virtual Library

As many as one in five of the world's poorest people are disabled. For the majority who live in developing countries, access to the basics of life, such as food, water and shelter, is a daily struggle. An analysis of available information and opinion has found that disabled people in low-income communities are routinely excluded by water and sanitation projects, due primarily to external barriers—in the environment, infrastructure and institutional practices—rather than to disabled peoples' own limitations. There is a lack of awareness and understanding about disability among the majority of service providers, which is compounded by an absence of appropriate and available information that would enable them to take practical steps to improve access for disabled people. This paper argues that water and sanitation service providers have a key role to play in reducing barriers to disabled people's participation in daily activities, and thus relieving their poverty and isolation. Planners and service providers therefore need to consult and include disabled people at all stages of the project cycle.

Values of the coefficient of chloride diffusion D, as measured by the classical diffusion test and by a penetration test, are compared. It is shown that D cannot be determined reliably from penetration tests. Two sets of nomograms are developed for the design of concrete structures in chloride environments. The proposed nomograms can cope with a wide range of concrete variables: a basis is provided for their extension to include parameters not studied in the present investigation.

It is well established that tension stiffening, the contribution of the concrete in tension to the stiffness of a reinforced concrete member, is a significant parameter in deflection calculations and this is recognised by design codes such as BS 8110 and Eurocode 2. These codes make provision for tension stiffening effects and also distinguish between short- and long-term behaviour. What is not known, however, is how rapidly tension stiffening decays with time or how significant this rate of decay might be for deflection calculations. This paper reviews the current approaches to tension stiffening in BS 8110 and Eurocode 2 and then summarises a major experimental investigation which was undertaken to explore time dependent aspects. Revisions to BS 8110 and Eurocode 2 are proposed as a result of this work. Further refinements for modelling tension stiffening effects in reinforced concrete members are also described.