September 22, 19 10] 



NATURE 



359 



part H. of this book, which deals with the applications 

 of reinforced concrete, confined himself entirely to 

 uoric done by Messrs. Wayss and Freytag, and there 

 is justification in regard to this choice, since the whole 

 of the examples described have been designed in 

 accordance with the rules and formula; given by Prof. 

 Morsch in the first half of the book, and many of 

 them, in accordance with the recommendations for the 

 desifjn and construction of reinforced concrete 

 structures, issued by the ^'crbands Deutscher Archi- 

 tekten und Ingenieur Vereine, and the Deutscher 

 Beton Verein in 1904. 



The theory of reinforced concrete is fully and 

 thortiughly discussed in part i. of this book, and it is 

 this section which will be of great service to English 

 and .\merican designers, because it includes a mass of 

 experimental data not hitherto readily accessible to 

 those who wished to make use of these results in 

 connection with any new piece of design work. 



In an investigation as to the flexure of reinforced 

 columns, Prof. Morsch shows that a special calcula- 

 tion of their safety against rupture by flexure will 

 only be required in exceptional cases ; for the strength 

 of reinforced columns with spiral reinorcement, the 

 author accepts the conclusions of Considere, who 

 showed that the carrying capacity would be 24 times 

 as great with such a system as when the same 

 amount of reinforcement was employed in the shape 

 of longitudinal rods. 



For calculations connected with simple bending. 

 Prof. .Morsch adopts the usual hypothesis that the 

 tensile strength of the concrete should be ignored ; the 

 gradual shifting upwards of the position of the neutral 

 axis as the loading is increased is clearly shown by 

 the plotted results of a series of careful tests made 

 at the testing laboratory at Stuttgart. A valuable 

 chapter is that devoted to the calculations necessary 

 when bending is combined with axial forces; circular 

 and annular sections are discussed, as well as those 

 of rectangular form. 



In rectangular metal beams the shearing stresses 

 are unimportant, and may usually be neglected, but 

 in reinforced concrete they are of great importance in 

 considering the arrangement of the reinforcement, and 

 Prof. Morsch devotes several chapters to the con- 

 sideration of this branch of the subject, which is often 

 inadequately treated in works on reinforced concrete 

 design; after a mathematical investigation, he deals 

 fully with the results obtained in numerous experi- 

 mental investigations, which he has himself carried 

 out on T beams, both when simply supported and when 

 continuous ; the results obtained from the latter tests 

 are exceedingly interesting and of great importance 

 to designers of structures in which such continuous 

 members are largely used. 



In part ii. there are excellent illustrations of the use 

 of reinforced concrete, examples having been selected 

 from all the various types of buildings or structures 

 for which this material has up to the present time 

 been employed. 



The recommendations of the German societies, 

 already referred to, and the regulations of the Roval 

 NO. 2134, VOL. 84] 



Prussian Ministry of Public Works, for the con- 

 struction of reinforced concrete buildings, are printed 

 as an appendix. 



The translator, Mr. Goodrich, and the publishers are 

 to be congratulated on the result of their labours. 

 The illustrations, on the whole, are satisfactory, in 

 spite of the difficulties connected with their reproduc- 

 tion, referred to in the publishers' note. 



(3) The author adopts the usual hypotheses in order 

 to obtain fairly simple formula for the design of 

 beams, both smple and continuous ; he takes Ej/E ^ 

 as equal to 15, and deals fully with both simple 

 rectangular cross sections and T sections. The various 

 formulcE are illustrated by numerous fully worked out 

 examples. 



In the second part of the work is given a number of 

 graphical and numerical tables for facilitating the 

 rapid calculation of the dimensions of beams of 

 various classes for certain lengths of span under 

 known loads, and examples are given to show how 

 much labour is saved by the use of such tables; the 

 maximum stresses permitted are those usually adopted 

 in practice. 



(4) The first half of this book is devoted to the 

 subject of the testing of the materials of construction 

 — stone, wood, metals, cements, &:c. There is nothing 

 novel or exceptional in this section in the method of 

 treatment of a subject to which so many text-books 

 have now been devoted. .\ special chapter is given 

 to the subject of the microscopical investigation of 

 the structure of metals, and to the application of 

 this method to commercial testing. 



The standard conditions for carrying out commer- 

 cial tests of materials, as approved by the Italian 

 Government, are printed in the form of appendices 

 to the appropriate chapters, and will prove of interest 

 to engineers who may have to carry out contracts for 

 the Italian Government, or for local authorities in 

 that country. 



The second half of the book treats of constructional 

 work in reinforced concrete ; here the usual order 

 adopted in text-books is inverted ; the first ninety 

 pages of this section are occupied with illustrations 

 and descriptions of works of all classes — buildings, 

 bridges, silos, harbour works, &c. — which have been 

 constructed in ferro-concrete, and then follow several 

 chapters devoted to the theories underlying the design 

 of such structures. Most of the works illustrated have 

 been carried out in Italy, where ferro-concrete work 

 has developed much more rapidly than in Great 

 Britain, and this section of the book will prove useful 

 to designers of similar works in this country, especially 

 as many of the reproduced working drawings are 

 fairly fully dimensioned. 



The mathematical treatment adopted in the chapter 

 devoted to the design of columns and beams of all 

 classes is that which has now become more or less 

 stereotyped in text-books dealing with reinforced con- 

 crete. There is only a brief treatment of the arch, but 

 continuous beams are very fully discussed. 



T. H. B. 



