Rain, Steam and Speed

Posted on 14/07/2013 by dougaj4
Rain, Steam and Speed; JMW Turner

Rain, Steam and Speed; JMW Turner

Rain, Steam and Speed - detail

Rain, Steam and Speed – detail

Joseph Mallord William Turner and Isambard Kingdom Brunel were the leading British practitioners in their respective fields in the 19th Century.  Their works came together in Turner’s painting “Rain, Steam and Speed”, which depicts Brunel’s Maidenhead Railway Bridge over the Thames, which at the time of its construction was the longest span and flattest masonry arch structure in the World.

The painting is discussed here:


with a longer discussion of Turner’s works portraying the Industrial Revolution here:

Brunel’s work on the Maidenhead Railway Bridge is described at this site:

Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide

which includes a wide range of historical images and texts relating to the bridge.

Brunel's design for Maidenhead Railway Bridge

Brunel’s design for Maidenhead Railway Bridge

Brunel's design for Maidenhead Railway Bridge

Brunel’s design for Maidenhead Railway Bridge

Posted in Arch structures, Bach, Historic Bridges, Newton | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Concrete ULS spreadsheet update

Posted on 10/07/2013 by dougaj4

The ULS Design Functions spreadsheet has been updated with the addition of provision for the Eurocode 2 rectangular stress block.  The new spreadsheet can be downloaded from:  ULS Design Functions.zip (including full open-source code).

For more details see: ULS Analysis of Concrete Beams; now with added units

Typical input screen:

ULS Design Functions-2

Posted in Concrete, Excel, Newton, UDFs, VBA | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Sydney Opera House and Peter Rice

Posted on 05/07/2013 by dougaj4

This year is the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Opera House, and to mark the occasion the ABC and the Sydney Opera House Trust have put together an interactive web site documenting the history of the structure:
The Opera House Project

Have a look at the Youtube video below for background on what the site has to offer, and how and why it was made:

or go direct to the Operahouseproject site below, (note that if you are running IE 10 you will get a message telling you to “upgrade” to a more modern version, like IE 9; it worked without problems for me in Chrome).

OperHouse1

Coincidentally, I discovered on Colin Caprani’s site a video on the life and works of Peter Rice, who spent a significant part of his early career working on the design and construction of the Opera House roof structures in London and Sydney.

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More from Renbourn and Friends

Posted on 30/06/2013 by dougaj4

For all its faults, Youtube does have some extraordinary material, such as this Danish documentary on the music scene in London’s Soho in 1967.

It starts with a very atypical 30’s style duet from Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, followed by commentary in Danish up to about 3:35, then:

  •  Live performances from not Davy Graham, but Marc Sullivan, but certainly showing Davy Graham influence, and Wizz Jones (possibly)
  • Some shots of Carnaby Street, backed by Beatles
  • Back to the folk club for John Renbourn
  • A street interview (in English)
  • Bert Jansch and John Renbourn jamming in their shared flat, while an unknown friend sits in the background, doing a crossword!
  • An interview with a painfully shy Bert Jansch
  • Finishing up with some (much more typical) jigs and reels from Carthy and Swarbrick

Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick still play together, the clip below being from a UK folk festival in 2009  (10 years after Swarbrick’s premature obituary in the UK Daily Telegraph!):

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John Renbourn

Posted on 26/06/2013 by dougaj4

John Renbourn has had the occasional mention here for his work with Bert Jansch and The Pentangle, but to my mind he is really at his best when playing solo, so here is a collection of Youtube clips which exemplify his unique style:

And a more recent live performance:

John Renbourn site (biography, gig guide and more)

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