SiSC has been established to help the small and medium size members comply with the Management of Health and Safety Regulations by giving those that subscribe the availability of direct competent health & safety advice.
Publications are available to buy or download here.
A new £1 million 'Target Zero' project is looking at five major building types (schools, warehouses, offices, supermarkets and mixed use) and will generate fully-costed solutions demonstrating how to achieve the three highest BREEAM ratings and meet the changes to Part L of the Building Regulations.
Below is an introduction to the topic Specify. You can also search for your specific topic using the Search box at the top of the page or click on any of the following keywords and phrases: National Specification; Project Specification ; National Structural Steelwork Specification; Specification of Structural Steelwork for Bridges .
The purpose of specification is to precisely state how work should be executed to ensure that the erected steelwork meets the designer’s assumptions and the client’s needs. Most commonly the designer is concerned to specify requirements in a way that ensures that the structure is sound in the ultimate limit state. The client’s needs may often focus on aspects of serviceability such as fit-up to other elements of construction or ease of maintenance.
Errors of specification can be expensive – either because corrections are later needed, or because over-specification adds unnecessarily to initial costs. For this reason the industry provides national specifications for both buildings and bridges for use as practical and economic benchmarks.
Considerable effort over several years has been spent by the industry in developing the ‘National Structural Steelwork Specification for Building Construction’ (NSSS) which is now in its 5th Edition and the ‘Specification of Structural Steelwork for Bridges’’.
The NSSS provides documentation that can be included in a steelwork contract, and which helps to ensure that steelwork is accurately and economically made and can be safely built. It also lists the information which is needed such that a steelwork contract can be completed on time without recourse to contractual dispute.
The NSSS is accompanied by the ‘Commentary on the National Structural Steelwork Specification for Building Construction’ which provides guidance and information on the NSSS and the philosophy behind it.
The ‘Specification of Structural Steelwork for Bridges’ contains a series of model clauses which are compatible with the Specification for Highway Works, BS 5950 Part 6 and associated standards. The model specification is accompanied by a set of Guidance Notes on Best Practice in Steel Bridge Construction.
British Standards (BSs) are being gradually superseded by European Standards (ENs) which are issued in the UK numbered as British Standards (BS ENs) For example BS 5950-2 for the fabrication of structural steelwork will be superseded by BS EN 1090-2 in March 2010. To help specifiers the steel industry is updating both the National Structural Steelwork Specification to take account of the requirements given in BS EN 1090-2 and the forthcoming CE Marking standard for fabricated steelwork BS EN 1090-. The ‘Specification of Structural Steelwork for Bridges’ together with the Guidance Notes are also being updated.
Each project generally requires its own project specification. In the simplest terms this might be an engineer’s drawing with the specification written merely as notes on the drawing. On more complex projects it is common that a project specification is issued as a separate contract document. For buildings it often follows the National Building Specification (NBS) in layout and should be based on the NSSS as far as the steelwork is concerned. Many issues may need to be addressed in the project specification and a list of these issues is included in Tables 1.1 to 1.7 of the NSSS.A more comprehensive list is given in the BCSA publication ‘Allocation of Design Responsibilities in Constructional Steelwork’.
Specification of Structural Steelwork for Bridges, SCI publication Model Appendix 18/1
National Structural Steelwork Specification for Building Construction 5th Edition (CE Marking version), BCSA & SCI publication, in preparation
Model Project Specification for the Execution of Steelwork in Bridge Structures, SCI publication, in preparation.
Guidance Notes on Best Practice in Steel Bridge Construction, SCI publication.
Allocation of Design Responsibilities in Constructional Steelwork, BCSA publication No. 45/07.
![SteelConstruction.org - All the information you need about steel construction - Go to home page [Accesskey '0']](/templates/images/logo_site.gif){kind=logo}