At the urging of the Iron and Steel Federation, the late Bernard Godfrey began work on the first edition of the Steel Designer’s Manual in 1952. He was the primary author and worked on the manuscript almost continuously for two years. Many a Friday evening.
On many Friday evenings he met with his co-authors Charles Gray, Lewis Kent, and W.E. Mitchell to review progress and resolve outstanding technical issues.
The result is a remark able book. In about 900 pages, the steel framing designer found everything he needed to do a detailed design of most conventional steel framing projects. Although this book is not an analysis treatise, it contained the best summary of analysis methods available at the time. Standard solutions, lines of influence, and formulas for frames were available to the ingenious designer to unravel the analysis of the most complex structures.
Information on element design was mixed in with guidance on the design of entire structures and joints. This book was better suited for a quick read rather than a corner to corner reading. No matter how familiar one thinks one is with the content, how often a further reading provides useful insight into current issues. The reader for gave its idiosyncrasies, especially the order of presentation. How could anyone justify sandwiching a detailed discussion of angle struts between a very general discussion of space frames and an overall presentation of engineering workshop design?
Description
The book was extremely popular. It went through four editions in both hard cover and soft cover, and was reprinted many times. Special editions were also produced for international markets. Each edition was updated with new material from a variety of sources. However, the book gradually lost the consistency of the original, and by the 1980sit became clear that a more radical revision was needed.
After 36 years of great success, the decision was made to rewrite and rear range the book, keeping its special features. Coinciding with this decision, the Steel Construction Society was founded and given the task of coordinating this activity.
The fifth edition of the book was a complete restructuring of the book, including more material on overall design and a new section on construction. Analytical content was abridged since it is now widely available elsewhere, but all design data was retained to maintain its utility as a routine design manual. The concept of allow able stress design was replaced by limit state design, encompassing BS 5950 for buildings and BS 5400 for bridges. Design examples use the more appropriate of these two standards for each specific application.
This is to maintain the practical usefulness of the concept of allowable stress design was replaced by limit state design, which encompasses BS 5950 for buildings and BS 5400 for bridges. Design examples use the more appropriate of these two standards for each specific application.